Online Artist

Years ago, a professional photographer gave me great advice, “Always carry your camera with you.” Over the years, I have cultivated my own philosophy to taking photographs and my advice is, “Vary your camera angle and the height at which you shoot your images.” The theme of my January 2022 Photo Show is, “Seeing Art Through The Camera.” I usually see the art of the image before I actually grab for my camera. Then I think about how to take the photo technically. I try various angles or staging heights to take the photograph. I hope that the image captured represents what I envisioned. Once the image is printed, I look forward to a printed piece that displays an additional richness of artistry. Not all photographs work perfectly but when they do, it is such a great high!

As far back as I can remember, I was always engaged in creative endeavors such as drawing and painting. Two years of Civil Engineering at the University of Maryland did not provide me with the means to express my creativity. When I changed my major to Fine Arts, it didn’t make my parents happy but they were supportive of my new goals. After 43 years in the graphic design field and serving as a Creative Director, I retired and moved to the Wilmington area. The beauty and natural energy of the places and artists here have rekindled my creative energy.

~(Joe) P. Weigmann (January 2022)

Currently, Michael Van Hout has sculpted, painted metal fish and a sculpture, “The Garden Muse,” at Art in Bloom Gallery. In addition, Michael is working on commissioned art. If you wish to request commissioned art from Michael, contact him at vanhoutm@bellsouth.net.

Michael Van Hout started creating professional art over thirty-years ago after studying Forestry at NC State University and graduating with a BSA degree in sculpture from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1980.

His large installations of animals made of wire, copper, and other metals are in Airlie Gardens, The NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, and Greenfield Lake Park in Wilmington, NC.  In addition to wire and metal sculpture, Michael creates wood sculpture, woodcut prints, mixed media, mobiles, paintings, and various commissioned pieces located in museums and in private and public spaces.

In 2004, Michael was a part of a team of seven artists, each of whom created their own sculptures for the Airlie Gardens Bottle Chapel, a tribute to renowned artist, Minnie Evans.  In addition to Michael, the Bottle-Chapel group included his sister, Brooks Koff; Virginia Wright-Frierson; Karen Crouch; Dumay Gorham; Hiroshi Sueyoshi; and guest artist Tejuola Turner.

Michael’s work has also created galimotos, dynamic wire sculpture with wheels that turn.  In 2016-17, he completed a 3-dimensional metal sign for Foxes Boxes Restaurant at 622 N. Fourth Street and art for a historic shirt factory recently converted into apartments.   The art includes wire sculpture in a pocket garden and a mural covering the entire wall of the entrance to South Front Apartments, 1510 S. Third Street in Wilmington, NC.

Michael’s studio is at Acme Art Studios, 711 N. Fifth Avenue, where he continues to collaborate with other artists and to encourage people of all ages to use their creativity.  He currently lives in Wilmington, NC with his wife, Marlisa, a mental health therapist.

Artist Statement

“There is often a commonality in what we think of as our individual past. As a lens- based artist, I seek to reposition my past as an operative with a broader context. In exploring its impact, both active and benign, memory becomes metaphorical and ritualistic. I strive for my images and assemblages to provoke, engage, and inform a universal memory with influences of contemporary life. These new works referencing strength are influenced by the interconnectedness of the natural world.”

Artist Bio

Barbara Snyder is a self-educated lens-based artist, working with digital, film and alternative processes. She has shown nationally and internationally and was a recipient of the 2014 and 2017 North Carolina Regional Artists Grant. Snyder lives and works in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Virtual Tour created by Matterhorn Media.

Artist Statement

The paintings are about the act of painting. Although individually the paintings possess different intensities, opposing levels of complexity and abstraction, and perhaps a vague adherence to a narrative, the core of the process of painting remains consistent. The paintings are a reflection of the process of painting them. Every process is unique.

The magic of painting can never be totally explained. I find joy in discovering the emerging world of a new painting. Although harmony of the mind and the heart is important, the metabolic process of converting color, form and line into the forces that drive the painting is absolutely necessary.

Artist Bio

Education:
Brevard High School
Brevard, NC – 1965
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL,USA – Marine Biology, 1965-1968
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Charlotte, NC, USA – Creative Writing Program 1970-1972
Western Carolina University
 Cullowhee, NC, USA – BFA Ceramics and Painting 1979

Employment:
Science Museums of Charlotte
Charlotte, NC, USA –  Exhibits Tech 1979-1982
North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher
Kure Beach, NC, USA – Curator of Design and Exhibits 1982 – 2008
Artist
Acme Art Studios – Wilmington, NC, USA   1979 – present
Poet
1970 – present

Affiliations:
WHQR Public Radio – Local Advisory Board
Wilmington, NC, USA
1996-2004
North Carolina Museums Council
1979 – 2002
Southeastern Museums Conference
1979 – 1985
Wilmington Railroad Museum – Planning committee chairman
Wilmington. NC, USA 1995
Acme Art Studios – co-founder
Wilmington, NC, USA 1991 – present
No Boundaries International Artist Colony – co-founder
Wilmington, NC, USA 1997 – 2010
Art Point Gumno
Sloestica, Macedonia 2005 – present
African American Heritage Foundation
 Wilmington, NC 2009 – 2011

Publications:
Southern Poetry Review
Saint Andrews Review
Kostroma Poetry Project (Russian translation)
Between the Lines – Poetry festival chapbook
Poems for Macedonia
Various chapbooks

More of his works can be found on his website.

Doug Haas is a wood turner who creates exquisite, original works of art often from wood found on local streets.  He is a volunteer woodturning instructor and mentor at Topsail High School and an active member of the Wilmington Area Woodturners Association and the American Association of Woodturners.  Doug’s wood turning builds upon his previous experience and exploration in painting and design.

Doug graduated from East Carolina University in Greenville, NC with a BFA in Art with a studio major in painting and a minor in wood design. He also studied art at the Universidad de las Americas in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico.

In addition to his work in the arts, Doug has a 30+ year career including 20+ years as an area coordinator for the NC Division of Emergency Management and as an emergency management specialist for the US Marine Corps, in addition to other positions in training and development.

One of his favorite quotes is “Why not go out on a limb?  That’s where the fruit is.” Mark Twain

When I was a young girl, my grand aunt, Julia Sonnabend Rice, would take me to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston on Tuesday nights. It was not the glitzy, popular place it is today. It was kind of depressing. The restaurant, which was a grim affair in the basement, specialized in salad with brownish bits of apples and slightly wilted lettuce. The clientele was ancient, a blur of blue haired Brahmin ladies. Upstairs, we toured the various exhibits, my grand -aunt asking my opinion of the pictures we saw. She would take the time to explain what she thought was special about the pictures, and the artists that created them. I found the whole business exhilarating.

I still do. There is something so utterly exciting and optimistic about starting a new picture, especially with some gorgeous, velvety new pastels. It is like the first day of school. You check your pencil box to make sure everything is sharpened and in order. You anticipate the coming months with excitement and some anxiety. Eventually however, you may learn quite a bit, and even figure out why they included a protractor.

More than anything for me, painting is about the process. In my work, I try to evoke a mood, to create a feeling of light, of atmosphere. I experiment with different materials and techniques. Regardless of how the picture is resolved, I feel satisfied with having gone through the process of creating it. For some reason, which I have not yet figured out, I become unbearable if I have not painted in a while. Just ask my husband.

I am intensely interested in color. That is probably why I love pastels. There are so many seductive shades from which to choose. I work on-site, because I feel my color relationships will be more genuine and less predictable.

I hope to convey somehow my feelings of how precious these scenes are. I try to capture their beauty, tranquility, and fragility. With the sprawl of the suburbs, it is becoming more difficult to find these serene and magical places.

Currently, Dumay Gorham, III is working on commissioned art. If you wish to request commissioned art from Dumay, contact him at dumay@mail.dumaygorham.com or 910-612-1723.  As soon as we have more art by Dumay, the art will be posted to our Art in Bloom Gallery website.

A native of Wilmington, NC, Dumay Gorham, III, is an independent artist and specializes in custom metal designs and fabrication and works in copper, brass, steel, and stainless steel as well as fiberglass and urethanes.

In addition to being shown in local art shows, Gorham’s metal sculptures appear in businesses throughout the Wilmington area. He completed wall installation versions of business logos for Copy Cat Print Shop and Ford Design Co. He has also completed commissioned sculptures for The North Carolina Aquarium in Ft. Fisher, The New Hanover County Arboretum, The UNC-W Center for Marine Science, The City of Wilmington, N.C., and many private homes and gardens throughout the area.
Dumay has also designed and built metal furniture for The Blockade Runner Hotel and Resort in Wrightsville Beach, N.C. and Jeff Gordon Chevrolet in Wilmington, N.C.

A friend of mine, a world renowned doctor of pharmacology, once asked me a question with regards to my artistic photography; “What is your purpose?“. For decades, I have tried to understand, answer and pursue what that purpose has been. To visually see my feelings in images, that represent myself as a child and young adult, has given me a  better connection, a deeper understanding, and a clearer meaning  in my personal life. Even as I have become a photography dinosaur, still working in my “chemical darkroom” and still using film for all of my artistic work, I continue to seek images that represent and connect with my heart and soul. Making prints that emit light from the silver they are made from is as important today as it ever was in this digital age of ink and sensors. After being given clear guidance by a great teacher about creating art with my photography, my artistic quest to find wonderful images has never ceased and to this day remains amazingly strong. Currently, I teach a class in Artistic Photography at Brunswick Community College, where I encourage my students to connect with who they are through their photography and I too continue to ask them the same question; What is YOUR purpose?

Artist statement

Art is an expression of passion and creativity. As artistic photographers, allowing ourselves to open up and feel this passion and creative flow ties our art to who we are and what we see. This produces images that represent our emotions, our dreams, our fears and our life experiences.

When photographing, the focus is on a different kind of place than our own reality or existence. We try to connect with a place that we figuratively can’t see. It’s a world of sensing a presence, an entity that defies description. As artists, we are compelled to understand how to connect with this feeling and then follow and photograph it. We are driven to find the source, its power. When we do connect, there is a brightness far more brilliant than anything in this world and possesses a feeling like a river of water flowing through our soul. This is a love that can bring us to tears and soothe all of our fears, stresses and anxieties. It’s a moment of discovery that creates a calming like no other; your soul is at rest!

Then, in the very next moment, everything changes and another excitement comes. Although there is literally nothing there that embodies this feeling, an energy courses through our veins with a rush of adrenaline that literally leaves us breathless, yearning and hoping to just take one more wonderful image.

We have seen and taken a photograph that reaches us on an emotional level, a moment that touches us deeply and profoundly. This is the true language of artistic photography.