Feature Articles


July Issue 2000

Here's a Carolina Arts Update! 7/22/05

erl originals gallery in Winston-Salem, NC, is now closed. The following is no reflection on the artist(s) mentioned in this article. They still deserve the historical fact that this exhibition happened.

Here is an excerpt from an article in the Winston-Salem Journal's Dec. 10, 2004, edition: "In late September, (2004) erl's owners, Peter and Lee Swenson, and the company they operate, Bogart Management Group, were foreclosed on by their bank. They were barred from their gallery at 480 West End Blvd. for being months in arrears on rent and utilities. Peter Swenson is facing numerous tax-fraud charges, as well as a growing number of civil lawsuits filed by creditors seeking to collect payments they say are long overdue".

 

e r 1 originals in Winston-Salem, NC, Features Glass Sculptor Richard Ritter & Painter Joan Mulligan

Dazzling glass sculptures by internationally known artist Richard Ritter and colorful oils by Impressionist painter Joan Milligan are being featured at erl originals in Winston-Salem, NC, through July 26.

detail of glass by Richard Ritter

Critics describe Ritter's masterpieces as poetry in glass. He is often identified with the "murrina" technique, an ancient form involving the use of slices of patterned glass canes, sometimes known as "millefiari". However, rather than emulate the traditions of Venetian glass, he concentrates on this painstaking, often arduous, decorative process to create imagery reflecting his long-standing involvement in drawing and illustration.

A native of Detroit, MI, Ritter started out in commercial design, graduating in 1968 from the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts (now the Center for Creative Studies) in Detroit with a major in both crafts and advertising and design. Staying on after graduation as a teacher in both fields, he began to focus on glass, establishing a glass program at the Bloomfield Art Association in nearby Birmingham, MI, two years later.

Ritter begins his work in freely expressive drawings. Working at the blowpipe, he builds up layers of crystal in reverse order from the way in which the composition will appear in the finished piece. After being transferred from the blowpipe to the pontril rod, the form is opened out and shaped with heavy layers of wet paper held in Ritter's hand.

In a recent issue of American Craft, writer Joan Falconer Byrd writes, "The ability not only to speak the language of glass but to think in this language has endowed Richard Ritter with a generous measure of trust. The brilliant integration of his work - its poetry - evokes our wonder."

Ritter's works are exhibited at galleries around the world. In addition, they are part of numerous permanent collections. Among these are the American Craft Museum, New York City; Corning Museum of Art, Corning, NY; Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI.; Eergstrom-Mahler Museum, Neenah, WI; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; The Vice President's Residence, Washington, DC; R.J. Reynolds Corporate Art Collection, Winston-Salem, NC; Museum of American Glass, Millville, NJ; and The White House Permanent Art Collection, Washington, DC.

Ritter is also well known as a teacher and lecturer, and, since 1972, has taught frequently at The Penland School of Crafts in Penland, NC, where he will teach a class this summer. In recent years, he has been a guest speaker at the Mint Museum of Art; Michigan Paperweight Collectors Association; Marketing Art Symposium, University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Museum of American Glass and The Creative Glass Center of America, both in Millville, NJ; University of Michigan; Toledo Museum of Art; Bloomfield Ails Association Birmingham, MI; The Works Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; and at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.

Joan Milligan

Joan Milligan describes herself as "an Impressionist, who in a century in love with intellectualism and formal abstraction, relies on that surprise of sensation and the magic of color."

The daughter and granddaughter of two United States Army Generals and wife of a diplomat, Milligan has lived all over the world. She received both her BA and MA degrees at Stanford University, studying with well-known artists Richard Diebenkorn and Victor Arnitoff. She also studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC, with Richard Lahey and the Museum School of Art in Kansas City with Wilbur Niewald. In addition, she studied landscape with William Woodward in Brittany, France. According to "Art News", she "paints dashingly handsome portraits and other works with flair and style. She is not tethered to traditions or formulas, but has moved beyond conventionalities, retaining some of the fundamental virtues of the academic."

Milligan's first one-man show was in Cairo, Egypt. She has exhibited at the Corcoran Museum in Washington, DC; the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA; Columbia Museum of Art in SC; Kimball Museum in Utah; Kansas City Museum in Kansas City; and at galleries from New York City to California. In a review of Milligan's art, "The Washington Post" writes, "The vibrancy in Joan Milligan's work along with the current movement toward greater abstraction will undoubtedly produce more exciting art." Milligan annually conducts spring workshops in the southeastern United States.

You can now view many of the items currently on display at erl originals on the Internet. Visit the gallery's new site at:( http://www.erloriginals.com).

For further information check our NC Commercial Gallery listings or call the gallery at 336/760.4373.

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