Author: sterlingsart

Here at the turn of the calendar year I find myself looking back, and feeling many things. Since I’m pointing myself that way intentionally, I’d note I’m grateful and hopeful. Tired, for sure. Although I’m on vacation and “relaxed” there is always the background energy of my anxiety, and I’m grateful for the progress I’ve made on that this year.

Marking occasions is not only important, it’s an easy assignment. Writers live for these kinds of things. By that I do refer to easy assignments, of course, and, I also mean a topic that gets automatic gravitas. I have read some of your year-end reflections** and look forward to a few more. I also say “easy” because I’m writing about the topic I know best- myself and my thoughts and my experiences. Did you see me call myself a writer btw? Hopefully you have been around here enough lately you take that for granted.

I think one major theme, maybe the most significant, in my practice in 2025 has been trying new and different things. Village Impulse was a little of both for me. Most of my energy on the front end of the year went into this multi-artist collaboration in which I utilized media and modalities that aren’t normally part of my strategies (“No,” there aren’t squares or cubes in the large work of Art below). This drawing-cum-happening was the centerpiece of an exhibit that pointed at several themes, such as opening up the subconscious and finding ways to let go of control. We all made a commitment that no one’s ego would ever be a filter for another creative’s license. I got lost and found my way… somewhere. It was gratifying to turn off the monkey brain and act with no judgement. If you don’t know those artists btw, that’s (left to right) yours truly, Chris Thomas, Cindy Morefield, Jason Lord and Peter Deligdisch.

I also got to work as a background enabler for an artist’s solo show. This was a lighter touch than curating, and definitely less “editorial,” as I did not select the work, only the artist, a creative whose practice is pretty different from mine. Derrick Beasley is a culture-maker. In addition to being at the center of all that is cool about Durham, NC, he organized, funded and manages a cooperative centered around equity and black farmers. His visual art also imagines a future culture. He’s a lens-based artist as well, and produced a short film for this exhibit. I was glad to be a small part of helping the Triangle show out regionally. I’d be remise if I didn’t also say that I. Am. So. Grateful for all I’ve learned through my membership in Tiger Strikes Asteroid. The experience has also been an education in collaboration and collective decision making, given that I am one of a 20+ group of the most wonderful artists and humans. And, my membership in TSA and this project specifically enabled me to put Derrick in the same room with Michaela Pillar Brown (you guys missed out on this talk let me tell you). Can’t wait to announce my main project through this platform next year!

Backing up a bit, my first curating project of this year was also my most ambitious exhibit to date. A 10 artist group exhibit titled Modernism Redux which gave me the chance to work with the Diamante Arts and Cultural Center, and of course Peter Marin, their Director. The exhibit was the inaugural Community Highlight, which I look forward to Diamante repeating annually. I am privileged and grateful for the honor of kicking things off. As part of this exhibit I utilized AI- specifically the large language model Chat GPT- as a tie-in to the themes of the show, which was very eye opening, although I have no plans to repeat the exercise. This was (is!) an amazing collection of artists, and the show looked. So. Good. If I do say so myself.

I also made a collaborative piece with Ariana Gomez for Party Line. This work was definitely more planned than Village Impulse- it had to be, since my partner in shenanigans lives in Texas. And even with planning, the universe saw fit to present me with unexpected outcomes anyway during fabrication, a couple of which I’ll be revisiting very soon (this wouldn’t be a year end/year ahead reflection without some teasers). I hope Ariana and I can show this or a similar work together in 2026.

I did get to show my own work this year, a *huge* privilege and honor, in an exhibit at Greensboro Project Space which was titled And, and, and… This show included work from a two-year period but was from a body of work that I developed over six years, and from which I’ve now moved on. While it is hard to think or talk of “and” ending, it was like a period at the end of a sentence. I got to share the space with the wonderful Leah Smith, and do an artist roundtable* with her, Allison Tierney and Chris Thomas (I discovered over the course of this year is my favorite format for engaging a show’s topic, the artists in the exhibit, and the community.

…

What do I have on deck? Besides the two teasers above, I have some writing goals and strategies in motion to get things on deck for 2027. I am, honestly, looking forward to a year centered on making which is focused on the work and not on meeting a deadline or satisfying someone else’s criteria. I choose optimism in this moment.

If you’re wondering about the title choice for this essay, it’s my values, and here’s an attempt at specificity…

1. Authenticity and loyalty. I try really hard to make space. I got to have lots of space this year. I think there is causation.
2. Commitment. I try to engage people’s thinking in addition to their senses; I write, and, I make objects that hopefully go in art galleries to be seen. These relate and are distinct (“both things are true” will continue to show up in my work as well). Each craft- writing and making- reflect time and dedication. In the former case, since considering myself a writer is still newish, I intend to lean in, and exercise a mix of discipline and grace.
3. Bravery. I wanna go up a level across the board this year. I have great ideas that need homes- my work, my writing, my curatorial voice. I have things in the works, and that doesn’t mean it won’t take a village to realize them (see #1). “Thank you” in advance to everyone who says “yes” to me this year. Also, I have work to do on my relationship to this word (bravery) which I’m looking forward to.
4. Honesty. The universe waited till the end of the year to really show me what that can do. The most personal thing I wrote this year, Expectations, was about my journey towards having a new relationship with my birth parents. Well, let’s just say that it’s had challenges, and I’ve grown by trying and, I think, taken some actions which made the relationship more likely to work, so I will trust the process as they say, and continue.

Breathe in. Release. Now, go forth and be amazing, lovelies. See you around!

** Speaking of year end reflections, you should read and participate in Allison Kirkland’s reflection questions in her lovely piece December (and you should follow her over on the Substack if you don’t already- we’re very lucky to have her practice among us in the Triangle). I took a go myself, answers below…

What parts of my creative life/writing practice felt the most meaningful this year?
Writing became a bigger part of my (visual art-centric) practice due in large part to encouragement from others in the community- as I saw others considering it seriously, I found myself re-orienting its importance in my practice.

At what points in 2025 did I feel most present with my own creative voice and writing practice?
When I put together my application for the Burnaway Writers Incubator. I felt really good about the application and at the time, it felt like something clicked for me in terms of how serious I wanted this part of my practice to be. I did not get invited to participate (this year!), and the rejection really hardened my resolve to continue to push my craft.

Did I have any creative challenges that pushed me to grow or taught me important lessons in 2025?
Definitely! A lot of 2025 was about new experiences- I’m going to write about that very topic shortly for my own blog; the tldr was ‘25’s theme was doing new things (“yes” that’s what you’re reading now).

Which habits or routines have supported my creative practice?
It’s not the thing for everyone, but, goals and schedules. I had given my art goals framework a miss for a good chunk of the beginning of 2025 because reasons (seriously, though, I was looking for and then starting a new job). Daily blogging helped keep my interest in Art and my engagement and enthusism up, and being regular about social media (to maintain my brand) kept me accountable for progress as well. I also really make a point of getting out to see the things, and being around the community gets me humming. Towards the end of the year I started scheduling time to be in the studio and make on a weekly basis.

Did I have any habits or routines that felt detrimental to my writing or creative practice?
Yes and no. I definitely have been working more lately than I have in years. It’s reminded me that there was an earlier time in my life when I was this busy when I didn’t make time for making Art and, eventually, fell out of love with it. I don’t think correlation is causation, but… That feeling, when I can recognize it (lack of enthusiasm), is a powerful reminder of the importance of the momentum that I’ve built.

Are there any beliefs I want to leave behind in 2025 when it comes to my creative life and writing practice?
It may not seem like this to many people but I don’t enjoy being bad at something. However, I need to start practicing what I preach to my own kids, that no one gets to be good at anything they aren’t willing to suck at for a few minutes.

What are two tangible ways I can show myself more compassion in the year ahead?
Besides like, literally just doing exactly that (therapy for OCD has helped me a lot here)? I wasn’t prepared to answer this when I sat down but will direct some thought to specificity in this area. Thank you!

2024 | 2023 | 2022

Hello, readers. I wish that this year included some high notes for you. For me, there were several of them, which I’ll share a tad ’bout below. If you’ve been a reader for a minute (and thank you!) there are links to prior iterations of this now recurring, annual effort to give snaps to our wonderful, local Art scene.

A few notes before we begin- these are not in order of preference or ranked. Als0, in the prior three iterations I’ve written about ten exhibits but this year I’ve expanded to 12 so there’s one for each month, maybe? I mean, *I* make the rules around these parts so it doesn’t *really* matter. Anyway, last but not least I want to note that while I clearly consider my opinion valuable enough to document it, no critic ever writes or talks about anything other than what moves them. There were clearly lots of exhibits that happened this year that aren’t included in this article, that took effort by curators and artists alike, and let’s all just take a moment to appreciate how lucky we are. Amen. Shall we begin?

Although you can’t find Critter on the IG, I hope you found Mid Career at Lump . If you saw this one once you didn’t see its totality- it evolved multiple times over almost two months, taking up both sides of our favorite artist-run gallery. If you love word play and clever Art historical references wrapped up in nods to pop culture, this giant work of Art probably (like me) pulled you back several times. As with all great shows there were lots of tiny gifts, like Critter’s journals of observed/overhead comments that also found their way into several of the works. Although I said these are in no particular order, I am putting Lump first because they deserve a big shout out. What a particularly strong year of programming from them- it would have been easy to put more than one of their exhibits on this list. I really hope they keep hosting the UNC-CH MFA thesis shows in particular (I think we will be seeing more from all four of the recent grads from that program btw).

We are really lucky that Rigoberto Mena decided to relocate here from Florida. He had the limelight a couple of times this year, and Skin of the City at Raleigh’s Contemporary Art Museum was, I think, their best painting show. While this one was unfortunately only up for a few weeks before CAM unceremoniously shut down this summer, I went a couple of times to sit with them and found their “skin” belies their complexity. I find it to be a real gift to have someone from Rigoberto’s sensibility among us- the mode of painting on display was a visceral counterpoint to the heavily intellectual work that pours out of American grad schools. The paintings are vigorously, physically wrought, and sit in stillness waiting for the gift of our attention, like the skin of Mena’s beloved Havana. Sorry to not have a link to this show- it’s really too bad CAM can’t be bothered to archive their exhibitions, but I imagine most of us have criticism for the lack of vision or mission over there of late. A real tragedy as the venue, with its superb location, flexibility and variety of spaces as well as excellent programming will be missed if they cannot find a way through and out the other side of their challenges.

Martha Thorn and Mike Geary Strange Attractors at Birdland gave us the opportunity to get lost. The work was strange, in the best of ways, and I do love a clever word play, in this case one where the title is primarily a reference to complex fractals- who knows what structure if any underlies the work (frankly the author doesn’t care). With the typical layers and layers of masked and re-masked visual planes painted in the wild, acid trip colors both artists are prone to, I had to hit this one up a couple of times also. BTW, Birldand is definitely the best “new” space in the area, although I admit a bit of bias as I was able to be part of an exhibit there over the summer (village impulse). Glad to see VAE not only rebooting as an organization, but also taking over directing this venue, to make sure the programming stays top shelf.

Humans Being at Satellite, which at the time was around the corner from Birdland but is now over on Poole Road, featured Christine Randolph, Bob Ray, Allen Lee and John Samosky, and matched scale to venue. Small works in a small space- not that the show or its contents felt small. Salon format doesn’t work for every show or in every space, but it did here; juxtaposing the works with no hierarchy made their surreal contents more surreal by context. The density also served, I thought, the function of making visitors “be.” There are a lot of things humans can be, among them imaginative and creative, in particular of new or at least other worlds. I hope we can all share and enjoy these types of journeys- envisioning is a gift that artists can give right now that the world sorely needs.

Movements by Maria Britton  brought together both paper-based objects and wall-hanging ones made of found and painted materials. It’s not every artist that can or even will move between modalities, and while the pedestal and wall works had a nice dialogue it’s clear one is not a warmed-over rehash of the other- they stand on their own, literally in the case of the wacky paper objects. As comfortable and fun as it would be for me to focus on some art historical references I see in the work, it feels very much like Maria is making up and and using the forms that resonate for them outside of a concern for any echoes. Also, it was a lot of work. Well done, as always, Anchorlight.

Renzo Ortega WAR at Artspace (link is to a pdf) brought (back) together paintings from 2000-2003 and was another painting tour-de-force. Ortega is another Latin American expat that we are fortunate calls the Triangle home. This work… hit on another level for me. I remember the Gulf War era as something that, at the time, felt like a low point in terms of my alignment with a lot of my fellow Americans, who cheered our country’s blatantly imperialist adventurism which got turned up to 10 by the neocon crowd (and yeah, *that* feels like something I’d almost welcome today). It’s an era that feels forever ago in the age of instant news that was also just being born at the time- remember watching live action War? Fucked up, right? Expressionism is an oft overused term and fitting here, both as a description and a mode of making. Really, really powerful work.

Martha Clippinger at The Orenge (courtesy Art Suite) is my wink-wink betcha didn’t know entry for this year . Orenge is a “venue” I feel like is not on the map for a lot of folks and honestly can’t remember how I got the word about this one. Martha was, as usual, clearly working with “painterly” concerns, and the material reality of the work (fiber) changes what that means. Maybe we’re (finally) in a time where observations like aren’t necessary, and it feels material (haha) to nod that way. People familiar with Martha’s practice know that collaboration with other makers is a part of her strategy; and, fiber art in general, even as it lives as a fine art object, when located in a commercial space, repositions the possibility for how Art intersects life. Regular readers know I’m into many ideas we inherited from Modernism so you’re likely not surprised to see my shouting out someone living that in real time. Also, Art Suite should do more pop-ups, their “stable” has some real NC heavyweights and they should find ways to showcase like this more often.

Staying with geometric/grid-oriented abstraction, I absolutely want to shout out Freddie Bell (we weren’t) built for this at DAG, in their good gallery (the one at Golden Belt; not sure why they didn’t archive this exhibition, so, no link…). Scale is super critical with non-figurative painting and the size of these works was very well thought out. The paintings were clearly about optics and not fussiness, and their small-ish scale emphasized the artist’s hand and the viewer’s eye- below is a detail to show you a little more about what I mean. There were also some wonderful assemblages in this show, painstakingly assembled out of painting that was made, destroyed, and reassembled on up-cycled, non-traditional support surfaces. Freddie’s practice in general is attentive to the relationship of our bodies to, well, everything… and they expand beyond objects into body movement among other things. Continue to keep an eye on what Freddie is up to (new works are dynamite)!

Jerstin Crosby PAUSE at Oneoneone is my personal, favorite work by this Artist to date- I’ll argue it’s definitively his most developed and relevant as well. I’m probably breaking some type of rule writing about another creative that has curated me into an exhibit and vice versa but like I said, I’m making the rules around here. There was definitely a (past) cultural moment where this show might have come off as cool hipsterism, but 2025 is not that moment, in fact the opposite. There is a sincerity at work here that the surface level of coolness belies for the casual observer. This isn’t just “yeah for the handmade in the age of AI” (although yeah I feel that). (As Jerstin said in the show statement) “I recall a time when society felt bound together by shared cultural underpinnings” and, clearly, the artist’s impulse to “pause” in this time of information acceleration really landed for me in the context of a longing for shared purpose and a sort of… if not contentment, at least belief that we shared the same reality. Super clever use of materials as well. Glad we have this space as part of our ecosystem in the Triangle, and its sister, Light Art + Design.

Skully Gustafson imagined Upon a Wand and we were all fortunate to get to see these paintings at Peel, another Chapel Hill stalwart around the corner from Oneoneone. A good blend of what we’ve come to expect from Gustafson compositionally (seriously flippant, with lots of “emotional mayhem”), the newer work, I felt, found a way to maintain the same spirit and embrace some luscious painterliness without giving up any of the “devil may care” vibe. Also glitter.

Karen Rose Border Paintings at Diamante is another show I didn’t hear enough of you talk about and you flat missed out if you did. I love the trick in the title. These scenes are not the border of the US at all, as one would expect in 2025, and in fact not even necessarily borders or even countries from which immigration by Latinos to the US is occurring. I felt it was more than clever to point in such an almost heavy handed but misdirected way to create (I hope…) pause for the audience. The strong horizontals which are clearly “of” landscape combined with non-mimetic color that is still representational (of emotional state) were so choice. No surprise that Peter Marin has a great eye for painting.

Julie Anne Greenberg Charting the Uncertain at Meredith College’s Frankie G. Weems Gallery was one of several solid performances they hosted (well done Todd Jones). If you think below is reminiscent of a hurricane you wouldn’t be far off, in a sense- the artist says “just as meteorologists attempt to predict the weather, humans hopelessly attempt to forecast their own lives.” Made of modular elements that give Greenberg almost infinite possibilities, the work exists in a space not between Art and “the natural” but of them both. The objects recall petals, or bark, and clearly Art- almost like brushstrokes. Fantastic and fantastical, and both somber and optimistic. More, please!

When I’ve put together these “year in review” previously, I’ve noted that (I think) one should consider museum exhibits in a separate category from exhibits by smaller, collection- and endowment-less (and often staff-less) institutions, so I’ll repeat that approach this year as well. My preference for abstraction noted, the museum exhibit that did “it” best for me was, hands down, Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention at NCMA. In addition to the importance for this exhibit that Hartigan, while canonized, is not widely and often celebrated, the show also introduced viewers to poets Daisy Aldan, Barbara Guest, James Merrill, Frank O’Hara, and James Schuyler. Their work deeply inspired Hartigan, in particular their rebellious spirit, including (and likely because) many of them were queer during a time when this was almost unthinkable, which is in itself, sort of unthinkable. Powerful work and words, organized by curator Jared Ladesma who NCMA should green light to do much more, within and outside of the collection as far as this writer is concerned.

Fuck you guys fucking rock. Let’s go 2026!!!