^{Scott Foldesi's Tabloids (2008), watercolor, sumi color and pencil on paper, 45 by 60 inches}

Check out that grid of fluorescent lights on the ceiling, organizing everything in the frame, like the grid of a Renaissance painter.

Now check out this diagonal grid of light, equally organizing. It causes an initial bewilderment about whether the bench and trees are inside or out—it keeps you looking despite the total banality of the ostensible subjects (bench, trees).

^{Scott Foldesi's Bench (2008), oil on canvas, 48 by 40 inches}

Yeah. And that's only seeing them on the internet. Imagine them in person. Meaning: ARTWALK IS TONIGHT.

These are at James Harris Gallery. (Gallery site here.)

^{Roger Fernandes's Sleeping Spirits Awaken (2001), acrylic on canvas, 30 by 40 inches}

It took Seattle Art Museum eight years to put together its current exhibition of Salish art—the art of the native people of this region—and SAM's show, amazingly, is the first major museum exhibition ever devoted to the work and culture of the Salish.

Why has Salish art been so lost for so long? What is it really about, and how does the SAM show succeed and fail in presenting it?

On my podcast this week, I talk to Salish artist Roger Fernandes—who grew up in an apartment on Capitol Hill but in a close Klallam family (the Klallam are from the Port Angeles area)—about his search for his artistic heritage, and why he deliberately makes art that his ancestors would recognize.

(My review of the SAM show is here.)

Dear Friends,

We at the Hideout have been reading the news and listening to the stories and know that our country has fallen upon difficult times. This coming year will bring hardships and challenges unlike any our generation has ever experienced, and with this change comes new ways of living. Americans are adopting leaner, more cautious spending habits and as their budgets are whittled down to the most basic needs, often art and culture take a back seat to food and shelter. We at the Hideout recognize this growing concern and have consulted with some of the greatest economic minds of our time to find a way to help alleviate the burden faced by this wave of fear and fiscal conservation.

After days of research, the Hideout announces its 2009 Economic Stimulus Plan for visual artists showcasing work at our establishment. For the calendar year of 2009, we extend discounted prices on beer and spirits, to all (80) of our artists, all of the time. You may enjoy $1.50 Rainiers, $2.50 drafts, and $3.00 well drinks from opening to close, 365 days a year. This economic stimulus plan expires on December 31st, 2009, at which time we hope the United States economy has sufficiently recovered and art sales have returned to pre-depression levels.

As an artist affiliated with the Hideout, we have a special card with your name on it, which you can proudly carry and use to receive your discount. We hope this small gesture makes your year a little easier and that the savings may be spent on rent, art supplies and other bare necessities. We would also like to see you more.

Happy New Year and thank you for bringing beauty into dark times (and our dark bar). We wish you the very best and look forward to seeing the creative output these coming months will undoubtedly produce.

Sincerely,
Your local economists at the Hideout

I came across the story Christopher posted about this morning shortly before he posted it, apparently—on my belated way through Modern Art Notes's weekend roundup from yesterday.

I'm working on a response that will go up later today.

But for now suffice it to say that I disagree pretty heartily with Christopher. Emily White is a firecracker, and I sort of fear the prospect of making an enemy of her, but I have to call it as I see it: Her weird, simplistic, and badly informed story is an example of the sickness it diagnoses—not a cure.

The artist Doris Chase, who split her life between Seattle and New York and who is most visibly represented here by two bronze abstract sculptures (one at left, atop Queen Anne) that actually don't tell you all that much about her life's work (which was just as focused on video and performance as painting and sculpture), died on December 23 at her apartment at Horizon House.

A public memorial service is scheduled for her at 2 pm January 9 at University Unitarian Church, 6556 35th Ave NE.

A public/online memorial of a sort is represented by this a great essay on her life at HistoryLink. (Deloris Tarzan Ament and Patricia Failing also have books out on her.)

But might we have an actual art exhibition to remember her and to examine her influence?

Bouguereau?: Not a starving artist.

This work of art—one of the best works of art known to be living in the city of Seattle—is back on view, at Western Bridge.

^{Marisol Rendón's At 1:00 am, charcoal on paper}

This menacing, gorgeous empty refrigerator (one from a series seen at various angles) has terrific double meaning situated in Southern California and made by an artist originally from Colombia. In wealthy San Diego, where the artist now lives, it might mean the spectre of sheer, anorexia-fueled power and glory. In poorer Colombia, well, you get it.

This drawing is up at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, where last week I came across a remarkable exhibition devoted to drawing-based works by women artists of Southern and Baja California (there also were two magnificent large-scale works in the show, by Tania Candiani—see her piece fully documented here—and Iana Quesnell, found here). It's the second in a yearlong series of three exhibitions the museum is doing on women artists of the area. I apologize to the survivors of any female artists of the Northwest who just dropped dead from hearing about the steady and intelligent institutional attention their southern peers are getting. (In a separate exhibition was this gynocentric gem from the museum's collection, an ancestor of Rendón's drawing.)

Assuming all has gone well, I'm in San Diego today, celebrating the holidays with family. That means that this weekend I'm hoping I'll get to see this show at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

Art-wise, there's another place I'd rather be: in St. Louis, at the Pulitzer Foundation for a show of Old Master paintings installed in varied lighting conditions, something like the way they might have looked when they were first shown, in the dim corners of medieval churches or in baroque side chapels. Here's a web catalog for what sounds like a dreamy show (shown is Giovanni Battista Caracciolo's Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian).