http://povevolving.com/gallery/

“Irregular Cycles”

15″ x 15″

Paper Collage and Ink

$450

Come Join us this Saturday evening for the re-grand opening of the Compound GAllery and the Swee(t)art Drawing Gallery. The entire space has been in a state of transformation for the last month and now has finally come together for this event!

I will be showing new ink drawings in the Swee(t) art Gallery along with other sculptors who draw! Lucien Shapiro, Bruk Dunbar, and Carrissa Bowman will also be showing new works.

Obi Kaufmann had some very thoughtful questions for me about how I work, and where my imagery comes from.

From Obi’s site:

Crystal Morey, the Record of the Maker

Crystal Morey’s strong yet delicate sculpture has only gotten more strong and more delicate as the years of gone on. As a fan of her work, I am thrilled to include her in the show this month at the Swee(t)Art Drawing Gallery. The show is calledProtoform and from her startlingly consitant and strong portfolio, the gallery will showcase her drawing, a mode of her work that she doesn’t regularly show. If you are a fan ofCrystal Morey’s Website than you do know her drawn work and if not, please visit us on the night of the reception, April 17th, 2010. I visited her new studio in the Compound’s new space on 65th in North Oakland and I asked her a couple of questions.

Her statement for the drawing show:

“In making the drawings for ‘Protoform’ I worked in an additive way. I collaged the drawings together by cutting out pieces and adding them for surface and texture.”

Obi: How did you come about to sculpture? Is it something you have always done, or were you a draw-er at first?

Crystal: I have been drawing for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the rural mountains of Northern California where I spent lots of time roaming the forests and building forts. In the evenings I would draw with my father, making elaborate stories about the animals and indigenous people that lived in the woods. This love for adventure and imagination fueled my desire to draw and has led to many other artistic passions.

I didn’t start sculpting until much later in life. Drawing is something that doesn’t require special equipment, only a surface and a tool to make marks. The way I work is no different, I have a surface and a tool to build with, the separation is in the process and the outcome. I think learning to draw first has only made my sculpture more informed, immediate, and inventive. Drawing and sculpting are both equally important to me. I have found that sculpting is more rewarding for me in its hands on visceral quality, it leaves a record of the maker that I haven’t been able to achieve through drawing.

Obi: I have noticed that your relationship to landscape, as a theme in your work is changing over the years. Am I right about this? Your figures exist in an environment now. Can you describe how that process came about and how you chose the imagery for the environment?

Crystal: I think my work has become less introspective in the past few years. For a long time I was very interested in emotion and focusing on the gesture, over exaggeration and animation in the body. I am still working with these ideas although in recent works I am looking at natural environments in relation to human emotion. I have always seen my figures in landscapes, although before, I only drew them. I am now making full environments, full narratives and landscapes.
The imagery for my landscapes are taken from objects, pictures, films, books, nature, and memory. I then reconstruct these images to make an environment that conveys the ideas and mood I want to show.

Obi: Sometimes I think your figures look like you. Is that right? Where do these people come from?

Crystal: Many people see the work as self-portrait, other people see the work first, and then on meeting me, can’t see the connection. For me, the figures don’t represent specific people, they represent feelings, situations, and states of being, and they are simply a vehicle to show an idea. I relate to humans and I am interested in both the relationships we have with each other and in nature.

03.22.10

Press Release: group-art exhibit

Protoform

Drawings by Sculptors

Artists in show

Carrissa Bowman

Brük Dunbar

Crystal Morey

Lucien Shapiro

Curator, Obi Kaufmann

The SWEE(t)ART Drawing Gallery

1167 65^th Street

Oakland, California

Show Runs April 17^th -May 23^rd, 2010

Opening Reception Saturday, April 17^th, 6-9pm

First Friday Reception Friday May 7^nd 7-10pm

Tea (Last Sunday of Show) Sunday April 16^th 3-6pm

www.oaklandsweetart.info

Swee(t)Art Drawing Gallery has moved and this is the opening show of 2010!

This show is based around sculptors and ceramicists’ drawn work as art in and of itself. The gathered roster includes emerging and established artists from a regional and national level who have built their careers on exploring their voice in three dimensions. This show explores their never before seen works at their creative genesis, as drawings. How does the sculptor relate to only two dimensions? Is their a tactile element that is maintained? How much of form is simply illusion.

Oakland curator Obi Kaufmann and artists/gallery owners Matt and Lena Reynoso continue their partnership with the side-project of the Compound Gallery, The Swee(t)Art Drawing Gallery. Now in its new location around the corner from its old spot, the Compound Gallery opens once again in April and is proud to host this unique Bay Area gallery.

Mission

The Drawing Gallery operates philosophically from a place near the origin of visual art. As a force in the world, Drawing separates humanity from all other terrestrial life-forms with its mysterious ability to transmit rudimentary information about beauty, mortality and emotive trans-generational divinations. Modern Art has subdivided itself into a million nodes of fashion and commodity and still there remains this mark-making impulse that ties us to the beginning of all art which begat then language: writing, theater, the visual arts, et al. The Drawing…the first beautiful word of the hand, the first dance, where the mind meets the eye and the creative spark is kindled and kept.

Swee(t)Art? Yes. It used to be a magazine,and then a website…now a gallery. Mixing both the Sweet and the Tart, Swee(t)Art has always been about the many flavors of contemporary Oakland. Although the gallery is committed to showcase regional and national art and the focus is on the local community, the scope of the work is not provincial and the themes, craftsmanship and presentation of all the high-concept shows at Swee(t)Art are of the highest aspiration in both presentation (of the individual) and cohesiveness (of the group).

CONTACT

OBI KAUFMANN

Phone 925-951-7501

Email: obikaufmann@msn.com

50 artists from around the world have created hundreds of works of art for this highly anticipated annual exhibition and sale. These artists were invited based on their unique artistic vision and contribution to urban/contemporary arts and culture. Each artist has submitted up to 10 works of original art, all affordably priced at $250 or less.

Exhibition & Sale Opens: First Friday, December 4, 2009
8pm til late, free and open to the public
On view through January 16, 2010

Here are some works I will have available!

1. “Morning, Keep The Streets Empty For Me”

Ceramic and Underglaze

$125

2009

2. “Forest Families III”

(Hand wing figure)

Ceramic and Underglaze

$125

2009

3. “Forest Families V”

(Grass chest)

Ceramic and Underglaze

$125

2009

4. ”Forest Families VIII”

(Hand body)

Ceramic and Underglaze

$175

2009

5. “Forest Families VIIII”

(Hand body)

Ceramic and Underglaze

$175

2009

6. “Our Spring Is Sweet Not Fleeting I”

Ceramic and Underglaze

$175

2009

7. “Our Spring Is Sweet Not Fleeting II”

Ceramic and Underglaze

$175

2009

8. “The Big Flight”

Ceramic and Underglaze

$195

2009

9. “Take Me Home Before The Storm”

Ceramic and Underglaze

$195

2009

http://thecompoundgallery.com/shopping-cart/  

The opening was really wonderful and hugely attended! Thank you to everyone who made it out for the evening and showed their support!

This Long Road I 

This Long Road II

This Long Road VI

Detail

Crystal Morey and Derek Weisberg Detail

Shane and Crystal

Team Clay

We Have been working really hard in the studio and the collaborations are almost  finished! Here are a few pictures in the process.

DEREK WEISBERG * CRYSTAL MOREY * BEN BELKNAP
(September 9-October 11, 2009)

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 12, 6-9pm

Afternoon Tea: Sunday, September 20, 3-6pm
Closing Reception: Friday, October 2, 7-10

Opening: Saturday, September 12 

Afternoon Tea: Sunday, September 20, 3-6pm

Closing Reception: Friday, October 2, 7-10

I will be documenting the collaborative pieces in progress and posting them here. Enjoy!

Day One: July, 13 2009