THAWW II: CALL FOR ART

Presented by The Yards Art Collective and Hungwell Art Services

On display March 15th - March 31st, 2024

THAWW is an annual exhibition that celebrates the things we make while we rest.

This is a call for works in any medium that speak to the prompt.  The goal of The Yards Art Collective and Hungwell Art Services is to usher in spring again by putting up and putting away the winter. 

Prompt:

Live here long enough and you learn that at a certain point in the winter the sky will go gray. The temperature gets low. Night and day begin to feel the same. The mood changes.  Living becomes quieter. The cold isolates, and the snow becomes a blank canvas. 

Rochester is a place that embraces melancholy. We feel it, but we also observe it. We pull from it.  We share it. We try to understand it, and we reveal it in order to find meaning through it. It lives in our art.

It can be seen in the way Walter Thomas Sacks could look at Bristol Hills in February and find light. It looks back from the fierce, cold stares of Ramon Santiago’s pale portraits. You can feel it from the disturbed and isolated figures of Robert Ernst Marx. Rochester can render in the dark.  

It’s that time again.  When we turn in. We hibernate. We create while we wait for the THAWW.

CALL FOR ART IS CLOSED!

COME VIEW THIS EXHIBITION FEATURING OVER 39+ ARTISTS!!!!

Details

Artists are invited to submit for consideration up to three works in any medium by completing a google form. The application fee is due by February 26th  

Fee

$25.00 for non-Yards member for up to 3 images 

$20.00 for Yards members for up to 3 images

Artists are encouraged to think creatively in regard to the prompt.  We are considering works in any medium, however works with video or installation components may be required to provide their own equipment. 

Timeline

        +All Submissions due by February 26th.

        +Artist informed by February 29th

        +Art works drop off and delivery by March 10th

        +Exhibition Opening and Reception March 15t

        +Exhibition Hangs till March 31st

Jury

We are giving out three awards of $100 a piece in three categories. This is a show juried by the patrons.  Admission is free. Viewers are asked to use their smart enabled device to vote on the work that speaks to them most in the following categories, meant to honor the memory of three people.

Awards 

The George Parrino Award for Excellence in Craft

George was a person who looked for bravery and draftsmanship. He loved precision. He loved boldness.  As a Professor he pushed artists to grow in scale and challenge the boundaries of their own perceived capability.   

The Tom Van Buren Award for Creativity 

Tom was a punk with a chaotic creative energy that poured out.  He made art that was loud and imaginative. Everything he drew was a new idea and his output was prolific. 

The Miriam Castillo Award for Vibes

Miriam was known by her family and friends for her perseverance and calm.  Miriam channeled art as an escape and surrounded her home with gorgeous portraits, landscapes and seascapes of the people and places that she loved.  

Curation

This show is curated by collage artist Erica Bryant, artist and curator for the Behind the Glass Gallery Richard B Colón, as well as artist and curator with Hungwell Art Services Matt Vanderlee.

Erica Bryant is a collage artist whose work is primarily inspired by dreams. She wants people who experience her creations to enjoy the freedom of being asleep, when the constraints of time, space, and logic don’t apply. Her work has appeared in galleries in California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and New York, most recently in the “Foundations and Futures” exhibition at the Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta. She was born in Rochester, New York, during a mid-April snow storm.

Richard B Colón is a Rochester NY based Street Photographer. Born and raised in the city, his main focus has been to capture the beauty of urban streets and architecture that the City has to offer as well as views that most have rarely seen. His work had been featured in Coffee People Magazine (Issue 19) as well as at Ugly Duck Coffee. He also released his first ever Photo Zine titled “Vibe-ography” in 2022. Currently, he is the founder and curator of “Behind The Glass Gallery” located at the Mercantile on Main in Downtown Rochester. His goal is to showcase underrepresented artists who have never been part of a gallery, show, and or have a minimal presence pertaining to their medium. 

Matt Vanderlee is an artist, curator and educator practicing in Rochester, New York.  At this time he creates artwork, facilitates art programming, writes about art, talks about art and curates art shows with a variety of local organizations that include The Yards Art Collective and Frank’s Chop Shop. He focuses his artistic practice through his company Hung Well Art Services. 

“Through this deliberate focus on collaboration my work examines the function of art in contemporary society. I work to contextualize the role of art as something that functions within a community and contributes in an essential way to the health of that place or group.  I seek to question the responsibility that art holds in regard to who art serves and how art works.  At times that leads to observations on how art is valued.  Much of this work involves creative facilitating, a process that I have explored significantly in my 14 years as a public school Special Education and Art teacher.”