As an artist, I want you to care about something as much as I care. To do that I make work that is at the same time familiar, and a bit strange — mysterious and, I hope, poetic. I want the work to be accessible on numerous levels. I attempt that through the selection of materials, treatment of form, use of subject matter and the method of presentation. I remain conscious of how my work rubs up to art across time and how it is informed by that history. The sculptural objects and installations I have produced refer to topics as varied as High Modernism, topical issues, the landscape — both physical and cultural — as well as music, jokes and cartoons. I have consistently attempted to combine art historical references with vernacular influences. As a native of the rural south, I have a tremendous respect for work that is made by the hand and guided by the heart and eye. But I also understand the importance of the mind in this process. To state my approach to the making of art in the simplest and most direct manner, I have used these — the hand, the eye, the heart and the mind.

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Recently, on the final shooting trip for this book, I was traveling on New York Highway 14 along the western flank of the Finger Lakes on my way to Watkins Glen. It had been a very long day, starting at five a.m. back in Pennsylvania, then up to Buffalo and on to Niagara Falls, which turned out to be a jarring experience. This is a place I’d always wanted to visit, and like the Grand Canyon it’s challenging to describe adequately in words or pictures. Surrounding the falls on both the U.S. and Canadian side is a tourist-trap riot of motels and fast-food joints and lame attractions, and most people seemed more interested in taking back-dropped “selfies” than in this powerful scene that nature had displayed before them. Although the falls are truly spectacular, the overwhelming crowds and runaway commercialism were so unsettling that I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

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In 2003, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and on the eve of the Iraq War, photographer Jack Spencer embarked on a journey to see America for himself. Thirteen years, 48 states and 80,000 miles later, an epic and timely photographic portrait of the American landscape had emerged.

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The latest exhibition in this long-standing showcase for outstanding regional contemporary art focuses on the surrealistic paintings of this celebrated Memphis artist. In her creative practice, Edwards approaches her recent subjects of enlarged flowers and animated landscapes from the viewpoint of a still life painter who has been long involved in the domestic realm and with common objects. Edwards has been particularly fascinated by the way in which certain toys exemplify both the animate and inanimate spheres of existence. Moreover, she is interested in the particular cultural connotations of toys, such as in what ways they imprint cultural perspectives upon children. Organized by HMA.

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Emily Leonard began her latest series with a watercolor she made while pregnant with her daughter. Although she did not know it at the time, she reminisces, “It brought me a lot of joy to make this picture during my residency in France, and I really wanted to make it into a painting.” While she normally does not prepare studies for her larger works, this special portrait of a foxglove was the origin of all the work that will hang at David Lusk Gallery (DLG) this April and May.

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Like many of his fellow Americans, Jack Spencer wasn’t happy when United States forces invaded Iraq in March 2003. His “This Land” series grew out of a deep concern about what kind of country America was at the beginning of the Second Gulf War. “I was pretty pissed about the U.S. going to war and disgusted with all the American flag waving going on … all the hyper-patriotism that permeated the air during that time,” he says. “I took a 9,000-mile driving trip out and around the West. I tried avoiding the cliché of American flags painted on barn roofs and flags planted everywhere along the way. Then at Wounded Knee (Pine Ridge), there was a small tattered flag on the gatepost of a cemetery high on a hill. It seemed like an indictment, yet the irony was palpable. “When I got home, I started making the darkroom prints, and for some reason I started distressing them — tearing the edges, gouging the surfaces, splattering them with caustic substances.

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The sky is not the limit for artist Veda Reed, it’s just the starting point. The Oklahoma-native will be exhibiting a collection of her works, inspired by the wide-open skies of the western prairies, at the Tennessee Valley Museum of Art. The exhibit, Veda Reed: Oklahoma Skies, will open March 26 and run through May 12. An opening reception for Reed will be held at the Tennessee Valley Museum of Art, 511 N. Water St., Tuscumbia, Ala., 35674, at 1 p.m. March 26 where she will meet and talk with visitors. Reed said she’s influenced by the open landscapes of her home state. “Actually, I was more down to earth in college and always considered myself a landscape painter,” she said. “Growing up and living in Oklahoma, there are very few trees, one could see the horizon. I began to look up and the sky became the major interest.” Reed added she doesn’t just paint clouds, but she studies them too.

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"In March 2017, University of Texas Press publishes This Land: An American Portrait, a visual meditation on American landscape and identity by longtime Oxford American contributor Jack Spencer. The photographer spent thirteen years working on the project and traveled more than eighty thousand miles across all forty-eight contiguous states looking for scenes and moments that he says, are "an expression of the perception of an ideal."

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Fine art photographer Jack Spencer presents his new book, "This Land: An American Portrait."

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Critics can usually finesse a relationship between two artists having simultaneous gallery exhibitions, as in “Notice how chartreuse dominates in each of their works” or “You cannot avoid perceiving the resonance between the curvilinear forms each artist employs.” Not so in the case of Rana Rochat’s “New Work” and Dwayne Butcher’s “Memphis,” through April 22 at David Lusk Gallery. Don’t strain at gnats, my friends; just enjoy each artist’s work for what it is and what it accomplishes.

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