Jessica Shively's Senior Art Exhibition!

Jessica's senior art show is coming up! It's at the UW-L Art Gallery. There will be free food and a cash bar and music and art and great folks! December 4th 5:00-8:00 PM! Go check out her and all the others artist's work.

Halloween Party

It's time for GBSS' Halloween Party! This costume party will be held on Friday, October 30, starting at 8 pm and going all night. Dust off your sewing machine and shake the spiders out of your masks, since we have some pretty awesome costumes lined up, and some great ideas to boot, so the challenge is on. There will haunting music, classic horrific movies, as well as other terrifying things too horrible to mention. Dress in sinister fashion or suffer the consequences. And how about a prize for the best and weirdest costumes? We're not advertising this year, but instead inviting all of our friends, and yours. Pass it on to anyone you would like to have there!

Don't miss our second annual Halloween party. We hope to see you there, if you dare!

Also check out Jenn's pumpkin carvings on the latest issue of the Second Supper!

Artists brighten downtown window with mural

La Crosse Tribune By GERI PARLIN gparlin@lacrossetribune.com

Local artists Matt Duckett and Jennifer Bushman recently finished an eye-popping mural, which will be displayed in Wittenberg, Wis., as part of Walls of Wittenberg, a program started in 2005 to revitalize the village through development of the arts. In four years, the central Wisconsin village has commissioned and installed 15 murals and opened an art gallery.

This mission struck a chord with the La Crosse artists, who run the Green Bay Street Studio. So Duckett and Bushman created a design that incorporated the nature of the building on which their mural would hang - an eye clinic. Duckett and Bushman's final design mimics the appearance of color-blindness tests and measures an imposing 8 feet by 30 feet. It is made up of more than 2,600 circles in 65 colors.

The artwork is painted on Dibond, an aluminum composite that is two thin sheets of aluminum sandwiching a layer of resin and is most often used in signmaking. Duckett and Bushman created 18 sizes of stencils to create the circles. Then they varnished the completed mural to weatherproof it.

The mural will be installed in Wittenberg late this week but until then is on display in the newly renovated building at 333 Main St. in downtown La Crosse. Duckett said this is a taste of what is about to happen in La Crosse. As a member of the City Arts Board, Duckett is working on a program to install artwork in vacant storefronts in La Crosse.

How King Gambrinus Got his Groove Back

Second Supper Issue 181 09-24-09

Return of the King
Reviewed By: briana.rupel@secondsupper.com

Standing tall on Third Street is one of La Crosse's most lauded landmarks. We are not talking about the World's Largest Six Pack this time, but rather the King Gambrinus statue, which many consider to be just as big.

Back in the 13th Century, King Gambrinus became an honorary member of the Brussels Brewers Guild, thus solidifying his place in history as the unofficial patron saint of beer. Fitting, then, that our own Gambrinus is perched spiritedly in front of the City Brewery, raising his chalice in celebration, as if to say,"Welcome! Be merry!" Perhaps equally as fitting, our beloved king just got a long-overdue, and much-needed, makeover.

Read More...

Restoration of King Gambrinus statue finished just in time for Oktoberfest

La Crosse Tribune Article 09-22-09
The City Brewery's King Gambrinus statue has been decked out in richer, more vibrant colors, just in time for Oktoberfest.

La Crosse artist Matt Duckett is expected to complete restoration work he began, with help from local artist Erich Boldt, in early July. The king's tunic once again is royal purple; the sun's rays had faded it to light blue over the years.

The statue of the patron saint of brewing is on the west side of South Third Street, in front of the brewery.

According to a 1939 La Crosse Tribune story, it was put in front of G. Heileman Brewery in April of that year after being purchased from a defunct brewery for $100.
Duckett said Monday the project took longer than he expected because of the amount of repair work he had to do. The statue apparently was built mostly with lead, tin and aluminum and had been repaired over the years with copper, fiberglass, steel, wood, flooring compound and automotive body filler, he said. Duckett used fiberglass and automotive body filler for his repairs.

Tom Zieja, owner of Z's Lawn & Landscaping Inc. at 400 Division St., also will donate landscaping work near the statue, such as trees, flowers, shrubs and new sod. It's to thank the brewery for donating 100 plastic drums that the Washburn Neighborhood Association has been converting to rainwater barrels, he said.

The association adds hardware to the 55-gallon barrels and sells them to people who connect them to their roof gutter to collect rain.

Matt Duckett's works accepted into Midwest Biennial

2009 Regional Fine Art Exhibition
A Biannual Seven State Regional Juried Fine Art Exhibition brought to you by Midwest Biennial and its sponsors.
The Midwest Biennial’s Wausau Exhibition will be held from September 4 – 25, 2009 in a beautiful gallery space located at 622 N. 3rd Street, in the heart of the Arts District in downtown Wausau, Wisconsin.









"Bruté"
Oil on Board

"Krump"
Oil on Canvas

Local artists prep iconic statue at City Brewery for return to royal hue

La Crosse Tribune Article 07.07.09
La Crosse artists Matt Duckett and Erich Boldt, from Green Bay Street Studio, strip paint Monday from the base of a statue of King Gambrinus - a legendary Flemish figure popular with breweries and who some believe was the inventor of hopped malt beer - outside City Brewery in La Crosse. The two have been hired by the brewery to restore the statue to its original color scheme.(Rest of the Article and image to follow)

Harry Spence Elementary School Workshop

Thursday, May 28th, a group of young artist from Harry Spence took a field trip to our Studio. These youngsters were winners of an art contest through the school, and their reward was to visit and do workshops at our studio.

With 25 students we had two groups. 1 group working on monoprints with myself (Jenn) and the other group, half worked on still life drawings with Matt while the others splatter painted outside with Erich. In the end everyone got to monoprint, splatter paint and still life draw, resulting in great prints, drawings and four energetic splatter paintings!

It was a fun a crazy afternoon, with great success in all categories!

Harry Spence Elementary School Splatter Paintings & Monoprints

Visions of Youth 2009

Green Bay Street Studio is holding the Visions of Youth juried art exhibition again this year. Last year was a great experience, and we had high schools and students from La Crosse, West Salem and Holmen participate. We are hoping to get even more schools and young artists this year, and hope that you would help us reach out to budding artists in the region. Visions of Youth is one of the ways we try to engage and encourage our art community, and our desire is to provide students with opportunities outside of the classroom to exhibit their art. We want to give students the means to affirm their art and inspire them to take the initiative and pursue it.

We have set up the exhibition near the end of the school year so that students will have a larger body of completed work and two semesters worth of growth to capitalize on.

Please help us reach out to students in your area. If you are an art teacher, we would love to hear from you about your thoughts on this program and what we can do to better reach students and young artists in the Coulee Region. Please look over the prospectus and application and pass it along to any high school students that may be interested.

Second Supper Feature on GBSS

Recently, the Second Supper interviewed some of the artists of GBSS for a feature. The story was an update on a story a year ago that heralded the grand opening of the studio. Now, one year later, they wanted to do an update to see what we had been up to since the initial story ran. The article turned out pretty well. Check it out here or read on:

Green Bay Street Studio Presses On

By Briana Rupel

briana.rupel@secondsupper.com

It had been too long since Jenn Bushman made art. Sure, she could draw in her sketchbook. She could still take gorgeous photographs. But the former UW-La Crosse art major had a small apartment that didn't allow for the necessary space to paint, and she didn't have access to the equipment needed to practice her true love of intaglio printmaking.

"Basically if you're going to school, you have access to the (printing) press," Bushman once explained. "But once you graduate, you're cut off. You don't have access anymore. And nobody on an individual basis can afford to buy or store a press on their own." She paused before continuing. "There's really no reason to stay in La Crosse if you want to do fine art, because there are no studios around."
...to read the entire article, click on the image below or go click here.

Behind the Scenes: GBSS Phantom Gallery

Now that the GBSS phantom gallery at 321 Main has been announced and unveiled, I thought I might give you all a glimpse into the process that went into building the frontage presence.  We've worked on getting a phantom presence downtown for over two years, so when our labor paid off with oppotunity, we figured the only thing to do was labor some more.  Perhaps due to our unfortunate economy, perhaps other things, but out downtown area has a lamentable number of vacant storefronts.  The best way, in our opinion, to keep these from being eyesores and signs of weakness is to fill them with art.  "Phantom galleries," as these types of window mini-exhibitions are called, are also a great opportunity for young artists to get exposure, and for the citizens of La Crosse and the surrounding areas to get exposure to new and unique art.

Once we found the right people to work with downtown, we quickly began to put together our presence.  We knew that since this was the first one in town, and since we wanted this phenomenon to grow despite other landowners likely being reluctant to share their vacant spaces with artists, our presence had to be top notch.  We wanted to use the space to share a high caliber of art, and inject downtown La Crosse with a challenging level of art making and art works.  

First, we built a modular wall system that allows us to have a mobile white-wall gallery sturdy enough to display all kinds of art.   Mobility was a big requirement.  If the space is rented out, then we need to be able to move the display to another space rather easily.

Here you can catch a peek at some of the tools that went into the construction process--standards that are essential to any good art studio.

Our finished wall is over 20 feet long, assembles easily and rather quickly, and breaks down to all fit into a full-sized truck bed.

Here is the white-wall before some finishing touches (taping, ratcheting, etc.)...

...and here is the wall with art installed.  Don't think you're off the hook, though, this art is gonna change quickly and often, so try to walk by any time you're downtown.

GBSS Presence in Downtown La Crosse

GBSS has finished installation of our downtown frontage space!  We excited to share our art with the busy central La Crosse neighborhood.  Come down to 321 Main St., across from Great Wall and the new jewelry store, and next to Mind Altering Tattoo to check out the artwork on display.  I'll give you folks watching this blog a little heads up:  the artwork on display is going to change quickly and regularly, so be sure to take a gander any time you're downtown.  The space will be a great opportunity for us to put together mini-exhibitions and work out our artistic and conceptual chops.  There will be traditional and experimental installation work featured, and it should be quite an event to keep tabs on, sort of a living blog.  Please check it out and check back often!

No Figure Drawing 03-25-09

Hi Everyone, just wanted to re-announce that due to our travels abroad and our train not arriving back in town until Wednesday night at 7:30, figure drawing will be canceled for a second week in a row. Sorry for the inconvenience. We will get back into the swing of things on the 1st of April with a 3 hour session. Hope everyone is doing great back in the states! See you all in a couple weeks! Cheers!
-Jenn & Matt

You're Invited to the GBSS One Year Anniversary Celebration!

Announcing our One Year Anniversary Reception! Saturday, March 7, we will be hosting a studio visit and reception to celebrate our one year anniversary. Last year we had a great turn out for our Grand Opening, and we would love to have you over to the studio to see what we've been up to since. There are so many things that we'd like to share with you. We try to keep the blog and website updated with most of the news, but it just isn't a good substitute for being in the studio. At our reception, we can share more with you over some hors d'oeuvres, recent artwork, good company and of course our new press! We'll have recent artwork on display by Jenn Bushman, Erich Boldt, Matt Duckett, Susan Timm and Lisa Ulik. Come celebrate with us and hang out with artists from the studio and the community!

Well, we've finished our restoration of the press. I know, we seem to do everything in obsessively quick bursts--Lansing, MI and back in 27 hrs., restore a press in a couple days--but it's a passion, you know? We buffed out those rollers, threw on a new coat of paint where it was needed, and got those casters installed. It's probably a good thing I lost those pictures of Jenn cleaning the press with a Q-Tip, or you might think our obsession is getting out of hand (but it happened). We scrubbed it down, got the casters on, and put it back together. We even ran a couple test prints through just to get out some of our giddiness. If this got you excited, we'd love to have you over some time to pull some prints and help us break in our new press. If you don't feel like making prints, or intaglio isn't your thing, we'd love to have you in anyway. How about our One Year Anniversary reception?

The New Press in Town

And the state, for that matter.

Alternate Title: A Press Hot off the Road....

Well, we just brought our new Wright Combo press home. It was a crazy weekend road trip over 1,000 miles of lake effected, State of Indiana-neglected roads.

We purchased the press from a wonderful artist couple in Lansing, MI. Anne is a printmaker, but hasn't been printing intaglio for some time now. They wanted to see that the press found a good home where it would be used regularly, and GBSS certainly fits the bill. It was amazing to meet Anne and Greg. Flipping through a photo album of the day they brought home the press originally, we were all struck by how similar the spirit was between these Michigan artists from 1978 and our own stable of Wisconsin artists thirty years later. We couldn't have found a more perfect couple of people to buy the press from, nor a nicer one. Not only did they provide us with a great press with its own unique history, they also loaded us up with gear (and donuts!). They threw in blankets, blotters, inks, a box full of books, oil paint--everything we could carry. Even refills on our coffee!

The press was built by a blueberry farmer from Grand Junction, MI. He was also a metalworker, and teamed with the more famous Dickerson--one of the oldest pressmakers in the States. Wright went on to make some presses on his own for a bit, which is the pedigree our press comes from.

It was an intense roadtrip, during which we learn many things about the words and became much wiser and tired-er. We learned that Indiana has crappy roads (sorry IN, but it was brutal hauling a 600 lb trailer across that meteor-impact-crater of a highway system. To be fair, I've driven across other parts of IN that weren't so rocky). We learned that 99% of IL toll booth operators are jovial, kind-hearted folk who love to share tax advice with you. We learned (at 3:30 in the morning while checking into a hotel) that Michigan is in the Eastern Time Zone (whoops, make that 4:30).

We left La Crosse at 6:30 pm on Friday, and were back in town at 9:30 on Saturday. That's about 18 hours of driving in 27 hours, with approximately 2 hours of press-lifting and three hours of sleeping, and around a half-hour of kid-in-a-candy-store giddiness in Greg's art supply shop.

We don't have a whole lot of pictures, since most of our dirving was in the dark. There wasn't a lot of things to take pictures of, beyond the seemingly random, gigantic shards of rusted steel embedded in the Indiana landscape and the capitol building of RoboCop's home state, in the shadow of which our press sat for about 15 years (the capitol, not Ofc. Murphy).

Once we got our press home, we began the process of restoring it to its former glory. The rollers were a bit corroded, and it was generally in need of a good cleaning. You can see in the pictures the progress we made on the rollers. I had a number of pictures of the press before we started working on it, but somehow all 20-30 of the images were 'corrupted.' So here is the press after a few hours of work. The top roller has been buffed quite a bit; from the bottom one you can see the rollers before we began (the top one wasn't quite as tarnished).













Here's a close up of a roller before we started our work. The rollers are threaded, which gives them traction as the blankets roll underneath them. It is important that we maintain these fine grooves as we buff out the rust.







We still have a little way to go on the rollers, but the rest of the press is coming along nicely. We'll likely be installing shelves in the press bench, and maybe some drying racks. We also installed casters on the bench in order to save space and keep some adaptability to our space for events and classes and such.

Stay tuned to check out our progress!

Figure Drawing

It was a great session last night. Thanks for everyone who came out. A little warmer and a little lighter every day.

GBSS Artists Talk to Area Eight-Graders

GBSS Artists Erich Boldt and Matt Duckett were invited to participate in the La Crosse School District's Career Day for eighth graders, which included students from Logan, Lincoln, Longfellow, Onalaska and Holmen Middle Schools. Erich and Matt represented the Fine Artist profession, discussing with students the path that they have taken in order to live a life of art. They discussed what it takes to establish a foundation for a career in art, some of the market trends and forces on artists, and some of the many ways a fine artist can carve out a living. Remember: sketchbook, sketchbook, sketchbook!

GBSS Spring Break Workshops for young students!

Announcing the GBSS Spring Break Art Workshops! Designed for younger students, either middle or high school-age, this four-day set of workshops covers the various processes involved in creating paintings, both realist and abstract. Included will be discussions of creativity and motivation. It will be packed with information that even adult artists strive to find out, and will be an invaluable experience for young artists as they enter high school or college. Put together by artists who have examined their own pre- and post-secondary experiences and shortcomings, the aim is to provide young people with a knowledge and understanding of art that is often provided too late--after the development of necessary skills that takes place in our teenage years. We look forward to having fun and sharing our knowledge with young artists in an exciting stage of their lives. Check back soon or email us for registration form and more information, including schedule of events.

Workshop cost is $100 for four days.

The classes will be taught by Erich Boldt and Matt Duckett. Erich Boldt is a substitute teacher for the La Crosse School District, and has taught in five school districts in Wisconsin. He graduated in 2007 from UW-Stout with a B.S. in Education and a B.F.A. in Fine Art. He has exhibited work across the state. Matt Duckett is a recent UWL grad with a B.A. in Fine Art and a B.A. in English. He has already won numerous awards and commissions during his young career, including being commissioned to create a portrait of new UWL Chancellor Joe Gow for his inaugural ceremony, and being the only UWL student commissioned by the UWL Foundation to create a new piece of work for their collection. He is also the two-time winner of the Dale and Betty Kendrick Award for a Painter, the highest award available for a painting student at UWL.

Figurative Drawing Workshops by Matt Duckett

Just wanted to let you all know that I'll be teaching a figurative drawing class at the Pump House Regional Arts Center starting in February. The Pump House just announced their next year of Arts Education classes and workshops. We'll cover the basics of rendering a figure, from proportion, to musculature, faces, and line and tonal techniques. We'll be working in charcoal, but we can accommodate your medium if you'd like. We will work from a live model, so this is a grand opportunity to tighten up your figure drawing abilities in an instructional, structured environment.

The class is a four-week session, either Wednesday afternoons or Thursday nights. That's:

February 18, 25, March 4, 11, 2 pm - 3:30 or
February 19, 26, March 5, 12, 6p - 7:30.

The cost is $95 ($85 for Pump House Members).
Head over to the Pump House website for more information, the materials list, to see the other shops offered, and to register.

GBSS Artist on the new La Crosse City Arts Board

La Crosse has just created the new City Arts Board. This is great news for the art community of La Crosse, since it means more representation and attention from City Hall. This should mean more opportunities in the near future for both young and older artists, and the Board will be working to cement La Crosse's reputation as a fertile arts city. Matt Duckett recently received a mayoral appointment to serve a two-year term on the Board. It is an exciting opportunity for him to be able to represent the young artists of the area in such a critical forum for their growth and futures.

Figure Drawing Back in Action!

The first figure drawing session of the year went great.  Thanks to everyone who made it out despite the ice and cold.  Everyone must've been starved of drawing, becasue we filled the place up.  We look forward to seeing you all next week!