THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 30, 1994 TAG: 9411010507
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: TERESA ANNAS
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
THE UBIQUITOUS Vincent Van Gogh.
Tuesday afternoon, I left the d'Art Center in downtown Norfolk, having perused with amusement its latest art-appropriation fest - this one, sending 33 artists into mass homage of Van Gogh's ``The Starry Night.''
Some pieces were sincere semi-copies. Others were clever ``Starry Night'' quotations on walking sticks, beaded vests and Post-Its.
An artist/art therapist had the wit to concoct a ``Starry Knight'' marionette of the painter. Matthew Bernier's Sir Vincent holds aloft a shield painted like ``Starry Night.'' Too true, given that painting was Van Gogh's greatest shield against a world in which he felt isolated.
Appetite aroused, I headed for lunch at Yorgo's Bageldashery on Main Street. What's on the wall? A parody of Van Gogh's ``Starry Night,'' with bagels instead of stars. It was painted by a former bagel-slinger, Jim Berry, now of New York, and has been hanging there for nearly two years.
Next, to Raphael's in Ghent for a haircut. Seeing the Van Gogh book on my lap, the cutter at the next chair said, ``Oh, I just saw his museum in Amsterdam.'' That's where ``The Starry Night'' hangs.
We see it reproduced often, and large. ``But it's really small,'' said the cutter, outlining an object about the size of a TV screen.
If only Van Gogh could have enjoyed such mainstream popularity in his day. He was 37 when he killed himself in 1890, a suicide likely due to what he termed his ``active melancholy.'' He painted for only a decade.
Today at 2 p.m., learn about Van Gogh from Virginia Beach art historian and painter George Tussing, who teaches at Tidewater Community College. His slide talk at the d'Art Center is free and open to the public.
Even before becoming a painter, Van Gogh was known to be drawn to twilight and night. Once he took to the brush, he often rendered those times of the day, expressing an intensified experience. Apparently, he felt an almost spiritual ecstasy, as though absorbed into the universe at large. At those times, perhaps, he felt relief from a loneliness that dogged him.
Most of the takeoffs at the d'Art Center appear to have little ambition to penetrate to the deeper meaning behind ``Starry Night'' or Van Gogh. The art on view by these regional artists is more fun than somber.
Steve Wolf's ``Very Starry Night'' is Very Van Gogh. The painting on linen is about the deepest thing happening in the hallway gallery. In a lush, compelling style, Wolf renders a dog standing upright, facing an opening sky with apparent astonishment.
Wolf convincingly alludes to a grand celestial happening, significant enough to engage major planetary changes. A huge orange gourd, perhaps a pumpkin, is in the foreground; its long stem is broken, as if some kind of umbilical cord has been snipped.
Numerous works echo Van Gogh's drive, in one way or another. New Yorker Sam Sebren, formerly of Norfolk, built a ``Starry Night'' of stuck-together Post-Its painted with Liquid Paper, the stuff usually used to correct typos. Making art with common office equipment available to any low-level clerk would appeal to Van Gogh, who related best to poor people.
Van Gogh liked to dress bummy, and probably wouldn't be caught dead in Sharon Beachum's ``Starry Vest.'' It's just too pretty. Onto the twilight blue vest front, Beachum sewed a happy mass of beads suggesting sections of the painting.
``My Starry Night,'' a painted fiber work by Deborah Small, also takes the light road with the redheaded Dutchman. In her image, a distant stand of trees rolls over the horizon like successive sea waves beneath moon and stars.
Spike Splichal's painted walking stick gives new meaning to the term lim(b)ner. Pat Kirby's sublime nocturne pastel balances a field of fireflies below against a star-filled sky.
Some of the cleverest works mix up Van Gogh's images.
Foust's ``Happy Hour at the Starry Night Lounge'' blends the idea of ``Starry Night'' with another Van Gogh work titled ``Night Cafe.''
In ``Night Cafe,'' Van Gogh's idea was ``to express the idea that the cafe is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime,'' he once wrote. Foust's sly rendering has a `Starry Night' mural as backdrop, and features a drunken man and woman carelessly slinging food and drink.
Ed Zingraff's witty mixed media lithograph makes a collage of Van Gogh's starlit sky, sunflowers and two of his contemplative women, one of them reading. The title: ``Night School Day Dreams.''
``Starry Night'' continues through Nov. 8 at the d'Art Center, 125 College Place, Norfolk. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Free. 625-4211. A SWEET DEAL
What's happening to us - to our land, our society? The organic-looking sculptures on view at the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts could be seen as a response to such questions.
Hear out the arts center's curator, Jan Riley, on Wednesday night as she offers her view of the exhibit, ``Fabricated Nature.'' Riley will give a brief slide lecture in the arts center's theater at 7, followed by a tour of the exhibit by education director Betsy DiJulio.
After feeding your brain, reward yourself with free dessert and gourmet coffee in the interior courtyard.
The show features work by 16 significant American artists and was organized by the Boise Art Museum in Idaho. It remains on view at the center through Nov. 6. Hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday noon to 4 p.m. Free.
The center is at the westbound entrance to the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway, across from the Pavilion. Call 425-0000 for more information. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
``Very Starry Night,'' a painting on linen by Steve Wolf,
convincingly alludes to a grand celestial happening.
``My Starry Night,'' a painted fiber work by Deborah Small, takes
the light road with Van Gogh.
by CNB