News

Lyrical Freedom

November 20th 2011

     Carol Bass paints with such liberated color and lyrical freedom because she embraces life through her art and can barely restrain herself.  In so doing she elevates the mundane to the marvelous, celebrating the sheer energy of sunlight, the green growing world, the watery blue planet, the love that binds us to it and makes earth home.

     In most paintings she is capturing a felt and perceived moment and sharing it with us. But don't bother asking what it means. Just enjoy it. 

     "Everyone wants to understand art, "  Pablo Picasso once complained.  "Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them?"

     The beauty of a Carol Bass painting is of this nature....exuberant, breathless, beyond explanation.

 

Edgar Allen Beem,  critic and author  MAINE ART NOW

Flat Iron Gallery Maine

September 2nd 2011

Maine's Soldier of Color has no fear!

This is Gallery Talk WMPG Radio's Window into the World of Art, by Larry Lindgren

A bud of mine has an opening this week.  I was surprised to hear a new gallery?

Yes a new art gallery is opening in our beloved Port City. In these turbulent economic times,

in a state who's governor uses his police power to dismantle art he does not care for,

it seems crazy that a new art gallery is opening,

God I jus love crazy...  

To paraphrase Maine Artist Carol Bass:  August Maine beauty leaves one stunned and dizzy,

colanders full of Blackberries, chirping Crickets, Hurricane warnings, campfires and

Matt Welch goes for it and opens his new Flat Iron Gallery"  ART LIVES IN THE CITY!

I think of Carol Bass as the Princess of Paint, or as I have referred to her in past blogs Maine's

foremost Soldier of Color.  

Carol is a painter's painter, bold vibrant strokes of vivid color define her

 


work.  She is one of the bravest artists I know having no fear of size or boundary.  Typical works

are  3' x 3',  6" x 6'  and  8' x 8'  and large format complements her desire to motivate.   I liken her

images metaphorically to a sunrise, a modern day impressionist who like a sunrise can captivate

and warm you, make you a fan, and bring a smile to your life.  Carol's works are all over the

country and world.  I am excited for Portland to have an opportunity to view what I get the

chance to see when I stop by her studio/home on the coast in Casco Bay.

The Matt Welch Flat Iron Gallery is located at the Nexcess for art here in Portland. The gallery is

on the 2nd floor in the building with the pointy end and picture window facing Congress Square

right above Starbucks,  across from the entrance to the Portland Museum of Art.    I am excited

on so many levels from new gallery, to new ideas, to new excitement.  ART is live and kick'n.

I suspect it's anything but pressed neat at the new FLAT IRON GALLERY.


Are you hungry for a good time?
Why go see art in Portland this 1st Friday of September? 

Go because your good mind deserves a feed, 
a feed of some good art! 

The Gallery Talk is made possible by the generosity of the WMPG Radio listening community. 

The blog is the text version of the art rant heard every Thursday at 7am, 5 & 9:30pm on WMPG

college and community radio Broadcasting from the University of Southern Maine 

90.9 , 104.1 and streaming on the web at http://www.wmpg.org/