R.M.Fischer's show at KS Art gallery gets a Fantastic review in Art in America.

The artist R.M. Fischer's show gets a fantastic review in Art in America. Congratulations R.M! And Kerry for designing such a powerful show.
In the words of the critic, Stephen Maine "The artist’s imagistic wit embraces Claes Oldenburg, teddy bears, lap quilts, inflatable sex toys and the antic bar scene in the original Star Wars movie." 

The perfect prelude to The Armory Show, which opens this Wednesday and will feature R.M. Fischer's new work.


http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/rm-fischer/

--Monica Forrestall

The Pro-rogue of Parliament: Frank Forrestall releases his animated political protest video.

My talented animator/video artist brother Frank Forrestall has been hard at work on a political video, and yesterday he premiered it on Youtube! In Frank's words below.

An animated protest video about Steven Harper's prorogation of Parliament. And it's got a singing beaver too!!!

If Stephen Harper thought that no one would notice his roguish move to shut down Parliament than he was just dead wrong wasn't he? Even the beavers noticed and their singin' mad about it!
Follow Beaver-Boy on his Vaudevillian tour of Ottawa as he dispenses punchy musical irony aloft his all-terrain unicycle.

Animation by Frank Forrestall and Music by Nick Bevan-John. Link to the video Pro-rogues of Parliament below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAT2csgk6SY 

Frank's website:  
http://forrestallstudio.com/blog/ 

Why not buy a t-shirt or mug to support the artists? 

http://www.cafepress.com/prorogue 

                                      --Monica Forrestall

Tom Forrestall's podcast interview on Tapestry radio show on CBC Radio Feb 21st

Our dear father Tom Forrestall talks about the spirituality he finds when he paints. The peace and optimism he finds working in his studio that overlooks the Halifax harbour which is "always a wonder to me".
And when asked what would heaven look like if he painted it, he said it would be dominated by our wonderful mother Natalie Forrestall.

Here is the interview, dad's part begins at 35:00 minutes of a 48 minute show.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/tapestry_20100222_27887.mp3

--Monica Forrestall


Tom Forrestall (above)  in his studio, his sanctuary of peace, working on a painting "Deer and Church" of a rural church in Karsdale, Nova Scotia.

Tom Forrestall's Toronto Star review of his McMichael Museum retrospective show

Dear dad's wonderful retrospective at The McMichael Musuem of Art in Ontario garners an astute and thoughtful review in The Toronto Sun. 

In the review below, the visual arts reporter for the Toronto Sun, Peter Goddard focuses on a tiny painting by dad of a tin of opened sardines. This painting is owned by a Saint John collector and well known business owner, who bought this delicate homage to a simple meal, because he himself ate sardines every day for lunch. And when this wee painting isn't touring the country, I was told by my dad that it hangs in his kitchen. Much like Warhol's ubiquitous can of tomato soup (his daily lunch) this can of sardines is a permanent reference to a time, a place and a memory.


There is a sardine plant in New Brunswick, where dad lived and we all grew up. Then sardines' were a pantry staple and something my dad enjoyed eating. When dad would take a can from the cupboard it was always a treat, and the fun of the opening of the can with the special key you needed to unroll the tin top added to the pleasure of this eating experience. 


Mr. Goddard hits the nail on the head, when he notes that dad's work is his strongest when he stays true to his vision. When you walk through his show, you are seeing a part of the maritime provinces that shows it's unique and best qualities through the mastery of someone who truly loves the simple land and the people he grew up with. 

"It's when Forrestall is unquestionably on his own that "Tom Forrestall" is at its best. Take Cold Lunch (no date given). Done in egg tempera – a time-consuming process requiring the patience of a monk and the hands of a concert violinist – it's both the smallest and best piece in this show of some 60 works, a snap shot of contemporary loneliness drawn as if by an old master." (P. Goddard Feb 13th, 2010, The Toronto Star).

Tom Forrestall's review of his retrospective in The Toronto Sun 


http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/764100--goddard-trying-to-capture-the-hand-of-god

--Monica Forrestall

The Outsider Art Fair and Kerry Schuss' booth Maxwell Projects

The annual Outsider Art Fair in New York is this weekend!
Feb 5th to Feb 7th 1(11am-7pm Sat) and 11am to 6pm Sat) at 7 West 34th Street in New York City.
Kerry Schuss, who owns Maxwell Projects, has spent months discovering some amazing new work to showcase.

Here, on the left, he shows collage pieces by Birdie Lush, who made these in the 70's. She was an older woman and an untrained artist in Ohio, who turned everything in her apartment into a piece of art. She was discovered by a cab driver who helped carry groceries up to her apt and uncovered a magical world of end tables embellished with paper mache swans and a phone that was decorated to look like a handbag.

Below: Aaron Birnbaum's memory paintings.

Dolls by a North Carolina doll maker are shown for the first time.

by: Monica Forrestall

Tom Forrestall's museum opening at the McMichael Collection of Art in Kleinberg and gallery opening in Toronto

The weekend of January 30th and 31st is when my father, Tom Forrestall's retrospective exhibition which is traveling across Canada, opened at the McMichael Museum of Canadian Art in Kleinberg, Ontario. A satellite gallery opening also took place at Kinsman Robinson in Toronto. It was a full, long weekend honoring my father at an extraordinary museum thirty minutes north of Toronto, and dad did brilliantly. I whiled away my time looking at paintings of our dad's that spanned from 1955 to the present at the museum, and included drawings, watercolors, early oil paintings and egg tempera works. I so enjoyed talking with wonderful old family friends. The weekend included dinners, luncheons, and watching dad's egg tempera painting demonstrations (he did two!) and talks with museum director, Tom Smart and book signings. 


Tom Forrestall (below) gives an egg tempera demonstration at Robinson Kinsman, who sponsored the museum show. 

Tom Smart, Director of the McMichael Collection, hosted a wonderful dinner in Toronto with guests, who included collectors who had loaned artwork to the exhibition and Ray Cronin, the Director of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, who is responsible for the curating and circulating of the exhibition. The museum staff did an extraordinary job with the hanging, and the exhibition was beautifully installed on the second floor of the main building. Some paintings were included in this exhibition, which were not in the original show at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. One painting I found particularly powerful has been in a private collection and not seen by the public for 35 years. This rather minimal composition, in a shaped canvas, has a flash of lightening piercing a night sky on the top panel, with a solemn scene of a Victorian room on the lower oval panel.  I was standing and talking with the owner of the painting and was able to tell him exactly where the painting was painted. The watercolor sketch that was the study for this painting (bottom being filmed by Chuck Lapp), was created at the O'Dell Museum in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. 

"Tom and Monica Forrestall in the Founder's Lounge at the opening of Tom's retrospective exhibition at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, in Kleinburg, Ontario. Father and daughter stand in front of the Founder's Lounge fireplace. At one time the room was a favourite meeting place for some members of the Group of Seven. The historic Canoe Lake sign was taken from the train station where Tom Thomson used to travel to"  S.Weir

     We all missed the presense of my amazing mother, Natalie LeBlanc Forrestall (in the shaped painting above), the love of my father's life, who expertly managed dad's career for 48 years. This museum exhibition was something mom worked at so hard for years to make happen. Natalie was not just the woman behind the man, but the person who lovingly ran his buisness. Wonderful childhood memories flooded back while visiting with paintings of mom in the show, my siblings, as well as paintings of dad's wonderful rambling home and studio in Dartmouth, and our summer home, Three Oaks.  An emotion filled, happy and successful weekend for dad, and we are so proud of him. And somewhere our dear mom is watching.

Gallery show installation shots.

                          And some of the work at the McMichael Collection of Canadian Art Museum below: 

The painting "The House at River Bend" is a painting Tom did of the landscape surrounding his family's homestead in Middleton, Nova Scotia.   Tom Forrestall (left) and Tom Smart (below, left) discuss dad's work at the McMichael Museum of Canadian Art. Kristin Grimson (Tom's niece), Monica Forrestall, Tom Forrestall, below right. Tom Forrestall's table at The McMichael Museum opening dinner in Toronto with Tom Smart and his guest Susan, Tom Forrestall. David DeVries (Tom's nephew) and his mother-in-law Elsie at The McMichael exhibition. Tom Forrestall signing copies of his book at the museum.

  

Tom Forrestall signing his book. 

          Dad's documentary film maker Chuck Lapp (above and below) and The McMichael Museum Librarian and Archivist, Linda Morita expertly record the day's events.

Tom Forrestall enjoyed a wonderful dinner in his honor at his nephew David DeVries and niece Kathy DeVries' beautiful home. 

below: Tom Forrestall talks with Museum Director Tom Smart at The McMichael Museum opening about loss, symbolism, a solemn palette 

and working for Lord Beaverbrook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSuo0M7wrF4 

below: video clip from Tom's talk at the McMichael Museum of Canadian Art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWWtZTSonh8