FEEDBACK
by Andrew Cedermark
Places #4: Sarah Owenby Andrew Cedermark, July 29th 10:14am

“Places” is a new feature where local artists show us the places around town that inspire them.

Guest post by Chelsea Hicks

Sarah Owen of JohnSarahJohn likes to get lost in the woods. If she has the time, that is. The Owen duo—the second half being Sarah’s father John—recently transformed a West Main transmission shop into a retail store/design studio/espresso bar/event space. Between running the shop itself, their creative design services and hosting movie screenings, community dinners and evening shows in the store’s backroom she is, she admits, a bit busy.

Her own art combines wall, floor and furniture treatment techniques with wood canvases and precise lines to create distinctly unique portraits. But with so much material swathed and stacked around her everyday world—local artists’ wares, warehouses of potential stock for the store—she likes to “gain some perspective,” in the evenings. For her that means walks on Observatory Hill with her dog, Madeline.

Photo by Anna Caritj.

Do you remember the first time you came here?

Right after I moved into town and I really had no idea where I was going and I just ended up here and I just kept going up. I just sort of discovered it on my own through walking around.

What do these trails have for you that other places lack?

Most people might say a museum or some place that’s full of inspiring works…There’s a lot of visual stimulation in my day to day life. I come up here and let that—not let it go—but to get some perspective on it…That’s another thing I sort of struggle with in my profession, is that it’s sort of material based and what I like most about what we do is the ability to inspire people who come in.

Has this place every appeared in your work?

It actually has. I was doing a drawing class and one of our assignments was to find branches and bits of nature and bring it back to the studio to work with. So I found little branches from here and brought them back.

Whether Owen comes to the empty trails with too many artistic visions in her head, or she takes a souvenir of the quiet woods back to the studio, she uses these walks to realize artistic possibility. “Being outside in the fresh air and stepping away from it all for a while grounds me and gives me an essential sense of clarity and perspective,” she says.

JSJ’s interior bespeaks her conviction. They carry the candles, book collections, prints and art of the people they’ve met along the way. As Owen says, “Neither my father nor I pretend to be experts at everything and what we have found really works for JSJ is to collaborate with people…whether it’s a seamstress or a musician or a sculptor, performers.”

The Charlotte, is an inspired local blog co-authored and co-curated by four friends: a designer, a writer, a photographer, and a stylist who love design, fashion, art, music, entertaining, and styling. I think it’s a bit like Charlottesville’s very own DesignSponge. 

In their own words: “Think of The Charlotte as your daily fashion and style fix with a more local focus and check in often for everything from tutorials, fashion, and style resources to food reviews, recipes, and all things Charlottesville.”

I had the pleasure of being featured as a guest blogger last week. Here is a link to my recent post. 

ART FEATURES

Darkness becomes him: JSJ brings Webb out of the shadows

By Laura Parsons | art@readthehook.com
Published online 12:41pm Monday Jul 11th, 2011

Ian Webb, “The Grim Steeper”

Readers who have driven (or biked or walked) down West Main St. recently have probably noticed the old auto mechanic’s shop across from the Blue Moon Diner has transformed into something altogether different— a space full of funky antiques and objets d’art, with a vertical garden blooming out front and Rick Easton pouring demitasses of espresso in back.

Witness the latest incarnation of John Sarah John (JSJ), a store cum design business cum cafe cum movie house cum artists’ studio cum gallery, which no doubt, will tack on a few more roles in the coming months. The brainchild of father-daughter team John and Sarah Owen, JSJ first appeared as a pop-up shop on the Downtown Mall last fall. At its current location, JSJ hosts weekly figure drawing sessions, which makes it the ideal venue for artist Ian Webb’s premiere exhibition, “July Like a Dog.”

To call Webb a purist in his approach to art making is an understatement. Working strictly from life, he doesn’t merely reject using photographs for reference; he detests the practice, writing in his artist’s statement, “The camera has led to the degradation of visual arts.” (Strong stuff in a town that just hosted a photography festival.)

Embracing techniques finessed by the old masters, Webb hand builds his canvases and grinds his own pigments using materials like rust, burnt bone, and flax.

Webb’s stance may be hard line, but his paintings are rife with diffuse edges and murky shadows. His figures’ facial features are intentionally blurred (with the exception of a few drawings on paper at the back of the gallery). His subject matter also trends toward gothic, perhaps reflecting the influence of Webb’s mentor, Norwegian figural painter Odd Nerdrum.

Which is not to say Webb lacks a sense of humor. The largest piece in the JSJ show, “The Grim Steeper,” depicts a winged skeleton cloaked in lapis blue (a color often reserved for Mary’s robes in Renaissance paintings), who dangles a copper teakettle from its bony fingers. The painting’s four panels, heavily textured with built-up layers, as well as its overall dimensions, reflect the golden ratio, a proportional dictate embraced by classical architects and artists. Webb’s technique is exacting and his aesthetic impressive, but the painting seems elaborate for having a joke at its heart.

Nevertheless, Webb is an evolving talent who walks his talk with atmospheric canvases, adding yet another facet to JSJ’s ever-evolving salon.

Ian Webb’s exhibition, “July Like a Dog,” is on view through the end of the month at John Sarah John, 505 W. Main St. 989-2456.