bad review
Well, it isn’t in print, so technically it isn’t even a review, but I did get a phone message on Friday, 10/27, from Regina Hackett, art critic for the Seattle P-I. She said that she did go to the (Re-Store) show on opening night and “…there were some things in it that we all know, Marita Dingus is great, she’s always great, but overall, I thought that the show was lamentable. So I didn’t stay for the fashion show because I came that night and looked around and thought, ‘jeez, I don’t want to have to stay for another couple of hours.’ It was just disheartening. I’m interested in the Re-Store, but not in that show. Recycling and art have been happening for a century and its out there already, really well done by others, masters, and this is just depressing…”
I was, of course, devastated, but managed to return her phone call and left a polite but pleading message and also sent her an e-mail, asking her to please see the other, bigger part of the Recycled Art and Fashion Show at the New York Fashion Academy (I included Rosemary Ponnekanti’s review, just to prove that I wasn’t a making it up that the show was worth seeing) . She sent a reply saying that she would see the show, but I haven’t heard anything else from her.
I have never met Regina, but she did see some of my work at the now defunct Priceless Works Gallery, and told me via e-mail that “your wall of figures looks great.”
More recently, I had sent her info about the HERE TODAY project, and she had responded by saying that if that had been happening in Seattle, she would cover it, but since it was Oly, she couldn’t, but that my work “…looks wonderful. A lot of recycled art is forlorn. Yours is the opposite. I’ve noticed, in music especially, Seattle notices things that happen in Olympia only after the fact. Keep in touch…”
The show is up until November 14. Meanwhile, I am hoping that Barbara Shaiman from the Seattle Art Museum Sales and Rental Gallery will go see the show, and I am working on a proposal for the TaCo Woolworths Windows Project 
in Tacoma. I would, of course, love to have my work at the SAM S&R Gallery windows as well as in TaCo/Woolworths.
Your work really did grab me too, Diana – both amusing and also provoking.
It is disappointing that Regina didnt realize that there were 5 galleries in 2 cities with over 150 artists participating, if you include the designers for the fashion shows. Too bad that she didnt have time to see the other galleries and get a little better perspective on the whole thing.
Maybe next year, when we get national art press attention, she will make a little more time to check it all out.
Wow, we’re going to get national art press attention next year? That would be awesome! I would be satified with more local attention. Lots of folks came out to see the show, especially during the Ballard Art Walk, and hopefully even more will come out next year.