Join the Conversation with Phillips' Mill ArtTalk

Old photographs often have a different quality to them, a personality that pop photographers often try to achieve with filters on their digital devices. Next up on ArtTalk we’ll talk with Jill Enfield about her work as an expert in alternative processes in photography, which is often historical processes of photography.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t be artist or apply alternative processes to your digital photography. For her recent work, titled The Way Home, Jill used her iPhone to take images from the Metro North commuter train that she rides a few times a week, traveling along the Hudson River from the Beacon train station to NYC. Jill made positive transparencies from the iPhone images to contact print on to glass for the final pieces.

In this episode of ArtTalk, improvisational artist Annelies van Dommelen discusses the challenges and rewards of working without a plan.

Early records indicate that all the way back in 1921 locals performed Antons Chekhov’s “The Proposal” on the stage at Phillips’ Mill. It’s believed to have been the first play performed at the quaint location in Bucks County, Pa. That was the start of a long tradition of bringing live, community-driven theater to our community. From original musical comedies to cabarets, short plays and impromptu poetry readings, Phillips’ Mill Drama has presented a variety of entertainment while supporting the aspirations of emerging writers, actors, musicians, and other artists.

More than a century later the Drama Committee is still going strong. How exactly has the Drama Committee continued for 100 years? How has it evolved over the years to what it is today and where will it go tomorrow? Valerie Eastburn, Chair of the Mille drama program, and Fran Young, director of the Mill’s EPC readings, will be our guests on the next ArtTalk where we will pull back the curtain and get a peek at what’s next.

Luiz Vilela’s work is highly skilled and he paints beautiful pictures, whether they’re a landscape or a portrait. But there’s something more there. People stop in their tracks and gaze at his work, like "Under Paris Skies" in last year’s show at Phillips’ Mill. He was voted onto Art Talk’s People’s Choice show as a result. Luiz likes to paint from life because he says photos often lie. Luiz tells a story that evolves from moment to moment as he’s painting.

That close time spent with his subjects and of course a lot of work on his skills gives Luiz’s work that striking presence. He says he found his “right place” as an artist when he made a master copy of one of the revered Daniel Garber’s works. He learned that each of Garber’s brushstrokes was exactly right. Luiz has learned to put down his brushstrokes and leave them there.

Luiz Vilela studied architecture at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and illustration at Pratt Institute in New York, as well as with Nelson Shanks at Studio Incamminati. Luiz worked at Golden Books and Random House. He’s an award-winning artist who’s exhibited at Phillips’ Mill for many years.

Alexander Shanks is a classically trained artist in the tradition of his parents, Nelson Shanks and Leona Shanks. He fuses classical methods with contemporary ideas. We’ll talk with him about what that means and how trends in technique affect what we see. Alexander is just back from Italy, where he absorbed inspiration from the classical masters. We’ll find out how he is applying this experience to his work in our modern context.

Art museums are often academic institutions, presenting art from a Euro-American canonical perspective. But we know that art is personal. What you see in a piece of art is influenced by what you’ve already seen, what you’ve experienced.

Art institutions that have traditionally displayed art and authoritative analysis for our edification are now asking curators from different backgrounds to design exhibits. And they’re asking visitors what they think about the works on display. Rather than a lesson in art history, it’s a conversation.

Our own Michener Art Museum has recently mounted such a show called (re)Frame: Community Perspectives on the Michener’s Art Collection. Curators with multiple social and environmental viewpoints have selected familiar works and shared their personal interpretations.

But what does this mean for the role of the museum as educator? And how will it affect our experience as art lovers?

Join our conversation about the exhibit with Dr. Laura Igoe, Chief Curator, and Joshua Lessard, Director of Exhibitions, as well as hear from some of the guest curators.

Phillips’ Mill is synonymous with the Pennsylvania Impressionists. We were their home base, even as they showed nationally. But our 93 year history includes many other artists and artistic styles. One artist who was integral to our arts community was Katharine Steele Renninger. In contrast to the Impressionists who documented the beautiful landscape, Renninger was a realist who focused on the everyday objects of Bucks County life, things like baby carriages… or Windsor chairs… or even the details of a staircase. Katharine’s work is spare and elegant. She saw the patterns of line and light in the quotidian. Her paintings are as much of a paean to Bucks County living as any of our painters’.

Katharine’s work has been compared to important American Modernists, such as Charles Sheeler, Charles Demuth and Edward Hopper. She was highly decorated, winning prizes at the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Woodmere Art Museum. In 1975, she  was named Distinguished Pennsylvania Artist. She was also instrumental in founding the Michener Art Museum.

Jane Ramsey’s life and work are steeped in Bucks County. She grew up in Lumberville along the Delaware River, where she carried a sketchbook from an early age. Her family went on Sunday drives to visit her father’s favorite barns. Jane is still visiting farms, but she stops to paint them now.

Jane’s watercolors of our rural landscape are informed by a lifetime of observation and sketching — what she calls “memory banking.” Now she can compose a swirling field of winterized grass or a cloudy expanse of sky from memory. Still, she’s frequently to be found en plein air, lovingly detailing the places where generations of farmers have tended the land. We’ll look at her work and hear about the people and places she’s encountered making it.

Jane Ramsey lives and paints on the Ulrich Farm, in Bedminster Township, Bucks County. She owns Simons Fine Art Framing & Gallery in Dublin, Pa. She also teaches art privately. She earned a BFA in graphic design (emphasis illustration) from Cornish College in Seattle.

Jane is Vice President of the Arts & Cultural Council of Bucks County.