The suggestion for this blog was made by my new partner and gallery director, Todd Masters and after much trepidation I am now inspired to try a new art form and to have the opportunity to stay in touch with all the friends I've made over the years, and hopefully add new ones.

I have had many experiences in my particular corner of the art world and would love to share them with you.

A new partnership, a new director and meeting new artists makes me feel very lucky. At the same time I am also making an effort to document the print history created in my shop and share these beautiful prints and monotypes. Our new gallery is called Pelavin Gallery and Todd Masters, Director and Partner, is a vibrant, intelligent young man, filled with optimism, plans, and a burning desire to be a contemporary art dealer! This is an undreamed of opportunity for me to meet a generation of artists I would not have known and to partake in the excitement of new beginnings. I just love it, probably because Todd now does all the heavy lifting.

With my new circumstance my website needed an update, on the first page of the website will be a little slide show, the slides are a clue to what I am thinking about and writing about. Today I've put up works by Freya Hansell, Judith Linhares and an Ivaylo Guerogiev. I chose these three images not only because they are meaningful to me personally; they are also date markers for my own career, early, middle and current.

The gigantic (40.5 x 76.5 inch) monotype created by the late, great Freya Hansell, in 1986, is untitled, but it is a pure Freya vision of a storm at sea. It was the sort of wild and wonderful art we threw ourselves into with abandon. From the image here you can see that Freya painted with all of herself, including both hands. She had a knack for working close to the "canvas" and producing something that could only be understood at a distance. Her works were infused with emotional energy. Freya tried anything on the plate including sand, we both loved gold and gold leaf so that was there too. After printing came hand touches and spray paint. She held the lacquer can alarmingly close to her face; her eyes, nose and mouth as she sprayed. No amount of reason could talk her out of it, so we all just fled when she shook up the spray can.

In 1997 I had the temerity to approach Judith Linhares to do monotypes. I was in love with her work, the rich paint handling, the mysterious stories and awkward characters were and still are visually and psychologically delicious for me. In 1998 Ms. Linhares won the Guggenheim Fellowship, which made me very proud of myself for inviting her in to the studio. "Big Cats" came out of our first project together, and it's always been a favorite of mine. I love the cats that are really over weight kitties, sitting so nicely and yet so wrongly on their stands and roaring. I love the lavender and yellow. I had to wheedle a signature out of the artist for this piece, as it was not one of her favorites at the time. She has changed her mind since. I continued to work with Judith until we had no press to work on. With each succeeding series of monotypes the artist was able to use more and more of her own painterly technique. In these first pieces I rolled backgrounds on the plate for her. The later work is brighter and more painterly, but this print has an enchantment of its own due in part. Perhaps, to our limited used of the medium.

The last image is by Ivaylo Guerogiev, a young Bulgarian artist now making his home in NYC. This image is from a series which depicts well known documentation of the theft and vandalism of historic art pieces. Ivaylo was just honored with a NYFA in painting and will be showing in our upcoming exhibition "This Mess We're In: Reflections on the Metropolis", a group show curated by Todd Masters. In this painting Ivaylo is copying an image taken from a video surveillance camera capturing the theft of Edward Munch's "The Scream" and "Madonna" from the Munch Museum in Oslo. The work was stolen in broad daylight at gunpoint by two assailants. The theft took place in 2004 and the works were recovered, although with some damage, in 2006. Guerogiev's works are fascinating and although painted without temperament, if you have a heart for art, these paintings can break it.

I am putting together an archive exhibition sampling my thirty years of printmaking and collaborations. I am thinking about the art and the periods I have experienced firsthand. Seeing new art in the gallery really highlights the difference between then and now for me. Friends of Cheryl Pelavin FA will notice that Todd's eye is more conceptual than my own, but we share a love of beauty and a certain aesthetic. I am so pleased and excited that I can continue to bring you emerging as well as mature art.

Please write to me, ask me questions, make comments etc. Much of the work I have created with artists is on this website, our new exhibitions and artist list are on on www.pelavingallery.com. You will see many of CPFA's artists there too. By the end of the summer we should have Pelavin Gallery's website full of art and information, currently you can see our current show "Christopher Blyth: The Build-UP" and our upcoming summer exhibition, "This Mess We're In: Reflection on the Metropolis".