by Jen Packer
We both had a great time last semester teaching a senior painting studio class at Tyler. The students were great, and sooo interesting and talented. So when some of them let us know they were having amazingly brief exhibits to mark the end of their BFA, Roberta went to see part of the group, and I went to see another part. Friday, Murray and I headed out to the wilds of Kensington (see picture below of young man and his snake) and found this really huge, amazing gallery space plus 20 artists studios there, in an old textile mill.
When we arrived, a local snake charmer was showing off his pal, the python, around the corner from the studio. A little later, the two of them came into the gallery. When we left, the python was draped around the neck of an art lover–of the female persuasion.
The gallery is FLUXspace, and the studios are named Art Making Machine Studios. And best of all, there’s a huge space that’s a shared woodshop, kind of like the shared woodshop that the guys over at the Church Studios have.
One of the studios
The exhibits at FLUXspace are only a week long, so you can’t afford to blink if you want to catch them. The one up now, “when a verb becomes a noun,” runs to May 10, and includes Alana Bograd, Dustin Metz, and six other artists. The guys behind this venture are Chris Golas, Joseph di Giuseppe and Josh Kerner. Golas and DiGiuseppe are Tyler grads (if you went to the Victory for Tyler exhibit, you saw work by each of them–see photos here).
As for our students in the exhibit there–Joy Payton, Jen Packer, Dustin Metz and Mike Ambron–they were looking good, and so was their art work and so were their proud families. Here’s my set with all the photos.
