Winter at Oak Spring

Last month, I returned to the Oak Spring Garden Foundation for a week of intensive studio work and research time in the library. I worked in the “Airport Studio” which once served the Mellons’ private airstrip. It was an inspiring atmosphere, to say the least!

During this visit, I focused exclusively on creating prototype models for a doorknocker inspired by Oak Spring. This process involved numerous variations of topiary designs, iconic elements associated with Mrs. Mellon and featured on the library’s bookplate. While researching in the library, I had the incredible opportunity to view rare, historical books, including several 18th-century works by Maria Sybilla Merian and a 15th-century printing of The Hortus Sanitatis—“The Garden of Health”—an early herbal encyclopedia detailing medicinal plants, their uses, and methods of preparation.

A particularly unexpected and exciting highlight occurred as I was exploring ideas for my doorknocker design. Thanks to the kind and knowledgeable librarians, who have now become wonderful friends, I was able to view several Giacometti hardware designs created for Mrs. Mellon that are kept in the archive storage (see cool pics below!).

AGATHA STUDIO GOES LIVE!

 
 
 

This Fall, I am launching my latest project, Agatha Studio, a line of brass hardware inspired by women past and present that has been a few years in the making. The first collection is made up of 6 door knockers poured at Birmingham Sculpture, a new metal arts foundry within the Thomas Project at Wade Sand and Gravel. It has been a labor of love, as each piece is modeled and poured using the ancient lost wax process, then meticulously chased and buffed. Read more about it and see the pieces at the link below. The work is available as part of a limited edition through AMW inc in Birmingham and Nickey Kehoe in Los Angeles. I am so excited to be partnering with these two inspiring enterprises!

Jill Biden Wears the Bossy Scarf on Super Tuesday

Sending a huge shout-out and thank you to Dr. Jill Biden for wearing my "Bossy Scarf" on Super Tuesday and for being the epitome of strength, tenacity, and cool!!!  
To learn the story about the Bossy Scarf go to http://www.pattybdriscoll.com/bonwit-teller

“Jill Biden, Symone Sanders deemed Super Tuesday heroes after protecting Joe Biden from protesters”. Click to read full Article

'Pieces of Agatha' at the Birmingham Museum of Art

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From text on exhibit plaque describing the work – by Hallie Ringle, Curator of Contemporary Art:

Patty B. Driscoll’s small abstract works were inspired by the image of Saint Agatha in the nearby painting Enthroned Madonna and Christ Child with Angels, Saints Paula and Agatha.  During the early Christian period, some believers were persecuted or even killed for their faith by Roman officials.  Agatha refused the advances of a Roman official, Quintianus, and as a result was raped and tortured, and eventually her breasts were severed from her body.

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Patty B Driscoll was drawn to this painting of Saint Agatha during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford.  In considering the plight of Saint Agatha and Christine Blasey Ford, alongside the #metoo movement which encourages women to share their experiences of sexual assault, Driscoll created these abstract paintings that are inspired by breastplates, a type of armor designed to protect soldier’s chest in battle.  Driscoll draws the abstract pattern of each painting’s surface from the patterns of textiles in paintings of Saint Agatha from the Italian Renaissance painters by drawing on artistic techniques like water gilding, the process of applying gold leaf to a layer of thin red clay, as part of her practice.

Birmingham Museum of Art installation of Pieces of Agatha Series, 2018

 

Feature: Art Galleries and Artists of the South

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Kudzu, a persistent and aggressive vine, yields an exquisite purple bloom. When Persistence opens on August 23rd, paintings from the solo exhibition of artist Patty B. Driscoll will show the prickly weed as a metaphor for the resilience of Southern women and the steely grace of their voices. The series of eleven feminist-themed still life oil paintings on wood depict floral arrangements set in chiaroscuro lighting juxtaposing alluring imagery with subversive titles prompting viewers to consider the use of these terms and to reflect upon attitudes towards feminism and femininity in the South and beyond. Incased in Gluck frames inspired by Hannah Gluck in the 1930’s, the various sized works of art pay homage to oft overlooked pioneer women in the arts.

Patty B. Driscoll received her MFA from the California College of Arts after completing her undergraduate work in Studio Art and Art History at Skidmore College. In addition to her formal arts education, Driscoll has studied at the Florence Academy of Art, the Studio Arts Center International in Florence, and the Art Instituto in San Miquel de Allende, Mexico. Patty B. makes her home in Birmingham, Alabama, where she has returned to painting full time in her studio. She is represented by Canary Gallery. Persistence will be on view August 23 through September 29, 2018. For more information on the works of Patty B. Driscoll and the gallery, visit in person or online at  www.canarygalleryllc.com.

From Volume 15, Issue 2, 2018

B Metro: Portrait of the Artist

Written By Brett Levine | Photography by Beau Gustafson

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For artist Patty B. Driscoll, finding her way to realist painting wasn’t the easiest path. “I actually started art, in part, through studying with Anne Arrasmith at 21st Street Studios when I was young,” she explains. “Even then, Anne was a mentor who encouraged me to express myself creatively—and who helped me fall in love with Birmingham.”

That aspiration led Driscoll to Skidmore College, then to the California College of the Arts just as it found itself at the height of conceptualism. “I never really felt any expressive limits until I first found myself in college,” Driscoll begins, “and by the time I found myself working in the textiles department at CCA I was testing the limits of what it meant to be a painter—literally wondering what it actually meant to paint.”

All these questions led Driscoll to put down her palette and head in an entirely different direction: to culinary school, where she developed an incredible mastery for cake decorating. “I decided to go to the Culinary Academy in San Francisco,” she laughs, but the results were no laughing matter. Four- and five-tier creations embellished with hand-laid designs that perfectly mirrored hand-stitched lace were simply part of a day’s work. “I suppose you could say I like digging in to the details. I usually think of myself as being a pretty loose thinker, but when it comes to creating, and making art, I’m incredibly controlled.”

Patty B: The artist in her studio

Patty B: The artist in her studio

Controlled she is. Her light-filled studio brims with studies in distinct states of creation. Simply understanding how she creates her current work—we’ll get there in a moment—is an exercise in restraint.

She had basically stopped putting brush to surface until she had an opportunity to take a painting class with renowned artist Mark Carder. Best known for having painted portraits of presidents, Carder’s still life works are sublime. “I’d basically spent most of my painting career thinking about the idea of making work—literally weaving paintings, for example—and when I went to learn from Mark it took me to a different kind of thematic place.” This place was one where composition was crucial, and where the ability to represent meant taking the variables out of the equation. “I wear black when I paint now,” Driscoll smiles, “so I don’t reflect in the composition. I focus a really narrow gaze on little moments of family, of legacy, and of passing things on.” But within all this, she recognizes the larger, more universal issues. “I think one of the great gifts of still life as a genre can be capturing a moment much like you’re catching a butterfly.”

Even more important is how engaged Driscoll is with the actual practice of painting, and how it meshes with larger issues of concern. “I love the fact that historically still life painting was considered a ‘low’ style of painting. It was one of the few studio practices women could have. So when I do a work like Lydia’s Purple,” she says, gesturing to a delicate work depicting a silver vessel, foregrounded by a purple flower, “I can reference ideas of women’s history, of family, and of experience at the same time.”

What matters most in the end though is how incredibly skillfully Driscoll handles her media. Whether working in multiples making prints that explore the history of Bonwit-Teller, or meticulously painting small sections of a solitary work in her studio every single day, Driscoll proves that it is skill plus commitment that makes excellence emerge. A belief in her abilities, and a passion for expression, were at the beginning of the journey; a desire to examine ideas formed its center; and a commitment to achieving at the highest levels reflected its manifestations. The ability to continue to learn, and to develop, keeps her moving forward. And there, on small canvases, and in intimate prints, Driscoll makes magic emerge every single day.

Posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2017: http://b-metro.com/patty-b-driscoll/31697/