The Button Suit of Ruby Ann Kittner, c.1935

Mrs. Ruby Ann Kittner and her husband Jake lived in Clinton, Iowa during the 1930s and 1940s. It looks as if Ruby was a button collector and seamstress, and poor Mr. Kittner was her display model. What a sweetie she must have been! This suit of clothes was in our personal collection for several years, and I must say, it was probably one of the most memorable and unique folk art pieces I have ever had the privilege to own. It was THE thing people commented on the most. The suit was too small for me to ever try on, but I will tell you, it was extremely heavy. It is very rare to find a folk art object of such quality with photo documentation like this. The story goes that this was first found in a thrift store in Iowa about 10 years ago. It changed hands twice before I acquired it.

Recently, this incredible button suit was exhibited at The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, WI. I no longer own this, it is now in another private collection.

An AM repost from 12/22/2008.

Julie Heffernan: A Contemporary Master

(Above) Self-Portrait as Thing in the Forest, 2002, Oil on canvas, 64 x 52 inches. Click any image for larger view.

(Above) Self-Portrait as Great Scout Leader, 1998, Oil on canvas, 74 x 60 inches

(Above) Self-Portrait as Raising Cain, 2007, Oil on canvas, 78 x 56 inches. Click any image for larger view.

(Above) Self-Portrait as Mother/Child, 1997, Oil on canvas, 74 x 60 inches

(Above) Self-Portrait Sitting on a World, 2008, Oil on canvas, 78 x 56 inches

(Above) Boy in Flight, 2010, Oil on canvas, 52 x 68 inches. Click any image for larger view.

(Above) Great Scout Leader, 2010, Oil on canvas, 72 x 54 inches

(Above) Self-Portrait as Animal Bed, 2008, Oil on canvas, 48 x 56 inches

(Above) Self-Portrait as Big House, 2006-2007, Oil on canvas, 68 x 58 inches

(Above) Self-Portrait as Big World, 2008, Oil on canvas, 65 x 68 inches. Click any image for larger view.


JULIE HEFFERNAN’S ORNATE, TRANSFORMATIONAL SELF-PORTRAITS and related allegorical oil paintings remind me of 15th century Florentine painter Sandro Botticelli (1445 - 1510)— with a splash of the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450 - 1516) thrown in for good measure. Her interpretation and understanding of paint, form and space can give one the feeling that Heffernan (born in 1958) could have been one of their contemporaries. These are large, impressive paintings—born from her own private fairy tales, fantasies of self and decidedly feminist thinking. If I were beginning a serious collection of contemporary art—Heffernan would be one of the first artists I would buy.

Julie Heffernan’s work is included in many national and international collections, including the Columbia Museum of Art (Columbia, South Carolina), the Virginia Museum of Fine Art (Richmond, Virginia), and the Zabludowicz Art Trust (London, United Kingdom). A traveling retrospective of her work, accompanied by the eponymous catalog titled Everything that Rises, was organized by the University Art Museum, University of Albany (Albany, New York) in 2006.

Her paintings have been featured in solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Lux Art Institute (Encinitas, California), the John Michael Kohler Art Center (Sheboygan, Wisconsin), and the Mint Museum of Art (Charlotte, North Carolina). Her work has garnered critical attention in numerous publications including Artforum, Art in America, Artnews, and The New York Times. Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she now lives and works in New York and is represented by two galleries, P.P.O.W.Gallery in New York City and the Catherine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.

Brian Dettmer: Book Dissections

Click on any image for larger view.



Click on any image for larger view.



Click on any image for larger view.



BRIAN DETTMER IS AN ARTIST WHO LOOKS AT A BOOK, OR SET OF OBSOLETE BOOKS, as a personal excavation into what lays within. Like an archeologist at work on a historical site, Dettmer carefully exposes one layer at a time while discarding the detritus. And in our 21st century “age of information” Dettmer’s approach to “revealing” information is refreshingly original. I compare Dettmer’s work to that of the great collage and assemblage artist Joseph Cornell (1903 - 1972), who, in his reclusive and private world, created boxes of visual discovery not unlike that of today’s Brian Dettmer.

Brian Dettmer was born in Chicago in 1974 and currently lives and works in Atlanta. He received his BA in Art and Design/Art History from Columbia College. He is currently represented by Packer Schopf in Chicago, Kinz + Tillou Fine Art in New York, Toomey Tourell in San Francisco, and MiTO Gallery in Barcelona. Dettmer’s work has been shown in several museums, universities, and art centers throughout the country, including the International Museum of Surgical Science, the Bellevue Arts Museum, the Rockford Art Museum, the Illinois State Museums in Chicago and Springfield, the Kohler Arts Center, and the Hyde Park Art Center.