It’s not often that San Diego artists get written about for publications or blogs that reach outside of the county. Other than CityBeat, who seems to be the most consistent, local coverage for art in San Diego is rather pitiful. That’s why I was pleased that Robert Pincus decided to make Tom Driscoll the subject of his maiden piece for Artbound. It’s fantastic that Artbound/KCET is making an effort to cover all of southern California, not just LA. We’re small, but there are some interesting things happening down here in SD.
Speaking of interesting art…
Closing reception is this Saturday, May 2nd, from 6-9pm. See you there.
This Friday, February 27th, from 6-9pm is your last chance to see the site conditional photo installation by Philipp Scholz Rittermann. Seeing this piece in person is truly a unique experience. It would be a shame if you didn’t get to see it before it’s gone forever.
It’s great to be in a position to facilitate the opportunity for an artist I respect to exhibit work they wouldn’t normally make. I’ve know for many years now that Philipp Scholz Rittermann is an exceptional photographer with an impeccable eye for detail. As would be expected, being a photographer, Philipp is used to making flat work. However, I had a feeling that he was itching to take his work off the wall and into a more three dimensional realm. I had no idea what to expect when I asked him to take a shot at making a site specific piece for ICE Gallery, but I trusted that he could come up with something interesting.
Please join us Friday January 9th from 6-9pm and participate in an immersive site conditional photographic installation.
This is a piece that so perfectly personifies Thomas’ aesthetic. Rough, dirty, rustic. He’s got a great eye for materials or objects that most people would see as garbage, or at the very least wouldn’t look twice at. Old thread-worn packing blankets for example:
Or perhaps a bunch of rotting railroad ties:
And now it’s these:
You’ve probably seen these everywhere and not even noticed. As I said, In my opinion that’s Thomas’ main strength as an artist. His natural instinct to see the aesthetic value in objects and materials that are ignored by most.
“Ive been looking into tumble weeds.” – Thomas DeMello
First of all I’d like to thank all of those that contributed financially and otherwise to help the new ICE Gallery become a reality. Sincerely, I appreciate it so much!
(In no particular order. You’re all important.)
Joan & Reuben Baron
Edith Baumann
Jack Brogan
Amanda Durbin
Christina Hendershaw
Harmony Murphy
Jeannie Armstrong
Liane Armstrong
Jenna Siman
Juan Villescas
Kinsee Morlan
Seth combs
Mathew Simms
Jon Hall
Pamela Putian
Paul Roberts
Bob Metheny
Nick O’dell
Philipp Scholz Ritterman
Sarah Trujillo
Robert Irwin
Jim Brown
Isabel Dutra
Jason Lane
Tom Driscoll
Joseph Huppert
Lee Lavy
Thomas DeMello
I hope I didn’t leave anyone out.
In early 2013 Jim Brown offered the recently evicted ICE Gallery a chance to continue in a new space. A few months later work began on a little 400 sq ft corner of Bread & Salt that would eventually end up taking a year to complete. If I had known how much time, physical work, and most of all, money that it would take to complete the new space I doubt I would’ve taken it on. Hell, I could’ve (should’ve?) spent all that effort and money on making my own work instead of a space to show other people (of course I’ll show there as well, but still). Hey, the opportunity for a cheap space was handed to me out of the blue. In a town as expensive as San Diego that’s a hard thing to pass up.
Anyway, if you want to see the build out progression in a ton of photos go HERE. If you don’t feel like going through all of that, here are some before and after highlights.
This was the space in June of 2013
Obviously the first thing to do was clean it up.
After the initial cleanup, the first major job was getting rid of that uneven concrete slab. It took 3 guys an entire day to break up and haul away 200 sq ft of concrete due to the slab being double thick. There was an additional slab underneath the top layer which was probably about 100 years old.
Then it was onto framing
Next was skinning the inside walls with plywood and then drywall. Having plywood behind the drywall is helpful for hanging heavy objects on the walls. No need to find studs.
I also added this message behind one of the walls before I sealed it up.
Jim Brown had all the windows at the front of the building re-glazed.
Half of the ceiling had to be ripped off due to water damage. That was probably the worst job out of everything. Decades old moldy plaster and dust raining down on me for 2 days. While I was up there I framed out that square hole you see below, which was previously used for an exhaust fan, in order to turn it into a skylight.
Ok, the big construction was done so it was time to mud the drywall. There was only two jobs that I paid someone else to do for me. First was the concrete, because you’re better off with pros for that job. The second was mudding and sanding the drywall which is probably one of the worst construction jobs ever. I was more than happy to pay someone to do it for me. That guy was in there for four days mudding a ceiling and 16′ walls, plus putting 3 layers of skim coat on 2 of the walls. (By the way, if you need a good contractor, this guy and his brothers are cheap, fast, and trustworthy. I’ve worked with them many times and they’re great. Let me know and I’ll put you in touch)
On to painting.
Of course there were a ton of other little things that i didn’t really document, but you get the idea. One thing that really transformed the space was adding the skylight. The roof is pitched facing north, so the frosted glass really lets a lot of light into the room. It made a huge difference.
Oh, the last major addition was track lighting. Since the space will only be accessible for opening and closing receptions, most of the time the exhibitions will only be viewable from the front windows. So having the lights on all night for passers by to see in is imperative.
That pretty much brings us up to present day.
Again, if you want to see more shots of the transformation click HERE.
There’s still a few little things to do here and there but they’ll have to wait. What’s funny is that even after all that work, all I’m left with is an empty room. Time to fill it. There’s already some great artists lined up for the rest of the year. Much thanks to my old pal Thomas DeMello for all the help.
Ya know, just when it seems as though no one’s paying attention to you, along comes an opportunity out of the blue. Two months ago none of us knew anything about Jim Brown and his architecture firm, Public, or his newly acquired huge project, Bread & Salt. The latter being a 40,000 square foot building built in the early 20th century which was, until recently, a Weber bakery. Jim had apparently been silently paying attention to ICE Gallery and, just when we were about to be evicted from our space in North Park, offered us a spot at Bread & Salt! Wow, we’re so appreciative for the offer and the opportunity. Our new space will be much smaller, but it has a lot of potential and we’re extremely excited to get to work on it.
Not only were we offered a new space in a small corner of Bread & Salt, we were also given the opportunity to tackle the entire 40,000 sq ft building. The building is more or less still in it’s raw Weber bakery state, minus most of the heavy machinery. There’s a ton of work to do before the building is ready to be inhabited by it’s future art and design tenants. Perfect! That’s just the kind of space we hope for. It’s the kind of thing we’ve been talking about for the last few years (“Wouldn’t it be great to be offered an interesting space where you’re able to create anything you want?”) and now we’ve been given a shot.
The four of us have staked out our individual spaces throughout the building and are in the process of installing what is shaping up to be a very solid and diverse exhibition. We hope you’ll come join us and see it for yourself on Friday, February 8th, from 6-9. This one is a big deal for us and we’re anxious to show you the work plus the unique building that we’ll soon be a part of.
We couldn’t have been more pleased with our last show at ICE Gallery. It was such a pleasure to work with our good friend Tom Driscoll, and he didn’t disappoint with his final results. We gave Tom free reign to show any work he wanted and to do anything he saw fit with the space. Initially he asked us what kind of show/work we wanted to see from him. Our response was to tell him “it doesn’t matter what we want. You just do the exact show that you want to see, and we’ll help you realize it”.
The photo above is what the gallery looked like about 2 weeks before the opening. The space had been a disaster for so many months, it felt good to get it all cleaned up and ready for install one last time.
Tom’s idea for an “all foam show”, along with his decisions on how to show the work was just the kind of unique approach we love about Tom and his work. Just about every piece was made specifically for the show and a couple pieces were made specifically with the space in mind.
We had the best turn out to date at the opening and everyone seemed to really enjoy the work. In fact our good friend Philipp Scholz Rittermann was so excited by the show that he offered to shoot it for Tom. The shots came out great! Check them out full screen in the slideshow below.
Ice Gallery 