Please join us at Abaton Garage as we wind up our 2004 season with My First 1000 Wrenches, an installation by Bill Schwarz. The opening reception takes place Saturday, October 30th, 4-8pm. Refreshments will be served, as well as live music by avant-garde jazz/blues singer Devorah Day and psychedelic band Pothole Skinny.
For directions to the gallery, please visit our site: www.abatongarage.com. For more information, contact Mark Dagley or Lauri Bortz at Abaton Book Company, abatonbook company, 201-369-1591.
Abaton Garage is open by appointment through December 6th. After that, we'll close down for the winter and re-open in May '05 with an exhibition by Amy Wilson.
there will be plenty of food too. so count on having that taken care of. hope to see every one there!
Bill, the wedding/reception I'm going to starts at 3pm and ends at midnight. I'm taking an hour bus ride from the PA to Englewood. I wish I could be there for the opening but I look forward to seeing the show.
MB and I are planning to attend. Thanks Bill.
Hey Bill, break a leg! Wish I could see the show.
I am so sorry I can't be there for the opening. I will definitely see the show - and am looking forward. Warm wishes bill - and have fun!
me and my two crazy housemates will be there. jim, mb we could squeeze you both in car if you want to hike it out to us first, but i'm not sure if that would actually save you any time.
I'm looking for a ride...
i can get car service for return trips to if neccess. also its not a bad bike ride from the path stop. thanks every body. and of course, sorry to miss selma.
i'm sorry, alex, i didn' t see you post til just now. am calling you.
hey, bill. mike has had a stomache virus for a few days now and it looks like we're not going to be able to make it tonight. i was looking forward to coming. congrats on the show and we'll see you soon.
So how did it go? Congratulations - I am sure it was a terrific opening.
special mention for a two river crossing and furthest distance traveled goes to alex. and thanks to every one able to come over and check out my place too. and those unable to attend were missed. thanks again yall.
It was a wrenching experience. Bill is not quite as big a diva as Devorah Day, but it was a cool scene, and we got to see his new pad, and Jersey City has its points, if you can get there,,,
Regret not being able to attend. But I have had the pleasure of seeing, and crashing on the couch of, the JC domicile.
In a 1954 letter to his boss Hedley Donavan at Fortune magazine Walker Evans used the following language to "sell" a certain portfolio idea.
THE BEAUTIES OF THE COMMON TOOL. A dozen or so large, sensuous black-and-white picture studies of hand tools bought in ordinary hardware stores. Sensuous is the word. Extremely careful though simple studio photographs. The photographer will assume that a certain monkey-wrench is a museum piece. The camera will drool over this and a countersink and a plumb blob. Abstract volupte. All will be strictly pure design: that is to say, no chiqued-up. Raymond Lowey or Dreyfus commercial corruptions will be allowed it this show.
In penciled notes he went further.
Time and again a man will stand before a hardware store window eyeing the tools arrayed behind the glass; his mouth will water; he will go in and hand over $2.65 for a perfectly beautiful special kind of polished wrench; and probably he will never, never use it for anything.
Finally, In an accompanying text for the 1955 Fortune magazine photo spread he waxed on even further.
...fine naked impression of the heft and bite in the crescent wrench...
...these basic, common tools stand for elegance, candor, and purity... Among the low-priced, factory-produced goods, none is so appealing to the sense as the ordinary hand tool. Hence, the hardware store is a kind of offbeat museum show for the man who responds to good, clear 'undesigned' forms... Aside from their functions—though they are exclusively wedded to function—each of these tools lures the eye to follow its curves and angles, and invites the hand to test its balance.
With Evans in mind I began collecting wrenches and researching tool collecting organizations. I soon discovered that foremost among those organizations was the Early American Industries Association. In the classifieds department of their quarterly journaI "Chronicle" I found a small ad for the Missouri Valley Wrench Club. And it was in a MVWC news letter that I discovered Donald H. Snyder's book My First 100 Wrenches. Unfortunately it was out of print. However, I was able to order from Mr. Snyder his sequel book, My Second 1000 Wrenches, which has proved invaluable in classifying and identifying most of the pieces in my collection.
I have taken for the title of my current show at Abaton Garage gallery, Mr. Snyder's term "My First 1000 Wrenches." The piece itself however is "untitled" which is my general practice in art production and presentation. The installation consists of approximately one thousand wrenches stored in eight open-lidded (as found), painted metal tool boxes which I have placed in a two across, four deep grid configuration on the gallery floor.
Mr. Snyder noted in "My Second 1000 Wrenches" that he was working on a third book.
--Bill Schwarz / October, 2004
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For directions to the gallery, please visit our site: www.abatongarage.com. For more information, contact Mark Dagley or Lauri Bortz at Abaton Book Company, abatonbook company, 201-369-1591.
Abaton Garage is open by appointment through December 6th. After that, we'll close down for the winter and re-open in May '05 with an exhibition by Amy Wilson.
- bill 10-26-2004 7:57 pm
there will be plenty of food too. so count on having that taken care of. hope to see every one there!
- bill 10-26-2004 8:02 pm [add a comment]
Bill, the wedding/reception I'm going to starts at 3pm and ends at midnight. I'm taking an hour bus ride from the PA to Englewood. I wish I could be there for the opening but I look forward to seeing the show.
- tom moody 10-26-2004 8:17 pm [add a comment]
MB and I are planning to attend. Thanks Bill.
- jim 10-26-2004 8:51 pm [add a comment]
Hey Bill, break a leg! Wish I could see the show.
- sally mckay 10-26-2004 9:23 pm [add a comment]
I am so sorry I can't be there for the opening. I will definitely see the show - and am looking forward. Warm wishes bill - and have fun!
- selma 10-27-2004 12:14 am [add a comment]
me and my two crazy housemates will be there. jim, mb we could squeeze you both in car if you want to hike it out to us first, but i'm not sure if that would actually save you any time.
- linda 10-28-2004 4:19 am [add a comment]
I'm looking for a ride...
- alex 10-28-2004 4:21 am [add a comment]
i can get car service for return trips to if neccess. also its not a bad bike ride from the path stop. thanks every body. and of course, sorry to miss selma.
- bill 10-28-2004 4:26 am [add a comment]
i'm sorry, alex, i didn' t see you post til just now. am calling you.
- linda 10-31-2004 12:12 am [add a comment]
hey, bill. mike has had a stomache virus for a few days now and it looks like we're not going to be able to make it tonight. i was looking forward to coming. congrats on the show and we'll see you soon.
- linda 10-31-2004 1:58 am [add a comment]
So how did it go? Congratulations - I am sure it was a terrific opening.
- selma 11-01-2004 12:52 am [add a comment]
special mention for a two river crossing and furthest distance traveled goes to alex. and thanks to every one able to come over and check out my place too. and those unable to attend were missed. thanks again yall.
- bill 11-01-2004 4:00 am [add a comment]
It was a wrenching experience. Bill is not quite as big a diva as Devorah Day, but it was a cool scene, and we got to see his new pad, and Jersey City has its points, if you can get there,,,
- alex 11-01-2004 4:15 am [add a comment]
- bill 11-02-2004 6:16 am [add a comment]
- bill 11-02-2004 6:17 am [add a comment]
Regret not being able to attend. But I have had the pleasure of seeing, and crashing on the couch of, the JC domicile.
- jimlouis 11-02-2004 3:55 pm [add a comment]
In a 1954 letter to his boss Hedley Donavan at Fortune magazine Walker Evans used the following language to "sell" a certain portfolio idea.
In penciled notes he went further. Finally, In an accompanying text for the 1955 Fortune magazine photo spread he waxed on even further. With Evans in mind I began collecting wrenches and researching tool collecting organizations. I soon discovered that foremost among those organizations was the Early American Industries Association. In the classifieds department of their quarterly journaI "Chronicle" I found a small ad for the Missouri Valley Wrench Club. And it was in a MVWC news letter that I discovered Donald H. Snyder's book My First 100 Wrenches. Unfortunately it was out of print. However, I was able to order from Mr. Snyder his sequel book, My Second 1000 Wrenches, which has proved invaluable in classifying and identifying most of the pieces in my collection.I have taken for the title of my current show at Abaton Garage gallery, Mr. Snyder's term "My First 1000 Wrenches." The piece itself however is "untitled" which is my general practice in art production and presentation. The installation consists of approximately one thousand wrenches stored in eight open-lidded (as found), painted metal tool boxes which I have placed in a two across, four deep grid configuration on the gallery floor.
Mr. Snyder noted in "My Second 1000 Wrenches" that he was working on a third book.
--Bill Schwarz / October, 2004
- bill 11-02-2004 10:49 pm [add a comment]