Local artist Fred Folsom's two September exhibits investigate the sacred and the profane in modern life.

By F. Lennox Campello

Edna didn't fit the rest of that exhibition. Not the out-of-focus photographs, or the angst-ridden conceptual pieces on the floor, or the forgettable abstractions on the walls. Edna was physically located as far away as possible from the entrance to the salon, as if the show organizers had somehow wanted to segregate her from the rest of the artwork, so desperately trying to be cool and so miserably failing. And yet Edna, in her spatial aloofness (at least for me) stole that show.

"Edna Flying" is an elegant painting of a bold nude woman, calmly soaring above a beautiful landscape, her hair and body stretched back from the breeze. It's magical and even somewhat religious, and thus a creative oddity for an artist whose work was once described as being "like a good shot of whisky." Folsom's artwork is often populated by rough characters: strippers, ruffians, rednecks, and other visual offerings that put a blush on cheeks and send warmth to private places.

Happy Hour (at the Shepherd Park Go-Go Bar)

This September brings not one but two Fred Folsom solo shows to the Washington area. The first exhibition is at the Arts Club of Washington, (Sept. 8-28) and the second, what Folsom describes as his "first G-rated show in 30 years," is at the Strathmore Hall Arts Center in Maryland.

Go-Go Bar Paintings

The Arts Club show offers Folsom's work for mature audiences. Here are his nudes and what Folsom calls his "Go-Go Bar paintings" (Fred unintentionally dates himself here... we call them strip joints now, and these "go-go dancers" are simply strippers). Strip joints, strippers -- these are harsh words to describe a hard profession, intelligently re-offered in Folsom's panoramic, detail-filled paintings that overflow with races and ethnicities and cultures and shapes and dozens of mini-dramas within the moist, smoky, damp world of a nudie bar. These paintings not only capture the lusty visual worship of the strippers by the rough audience, but also snatch and freeze the moment when a dozen different things went wrong for some, right for others, or alarmingly "just passin' the time, thank you" for others.

What a spectacular universe is this adults-only world of Fred Folsom! Bikers, soldiers, businessmen, rednecks, punks, hippies, yuppies, truck drivers, doctors, lawyers, and assorted mutants surrounded by naked women and St. Pauli Girl beer posters as decor. A hole where beer is king and a bar where there are no wine glasses available. A world full of visual clues about the insignificant dramas that motivate these painted players. A stripper, fully dressed as her shift is over, counts her tips by the bar. A hotel room key on a table perhaps reveals a husband on a business trip.

"As I stared vacantly at my canvas, a flying nude woman appeared in the picture" -- Fred Folsom

Empty beer bottles and disposable lighters compete with each other for table space, as formidable waitresses fight the constant tug-of-war between delivering new drinks and retrieving the ever-growing army of empties labeled Budweiser, Michelob, Stroh's, and Coors. A wall menu warns us not to expect any fancy imported brew in this joint, where all breathing things become smokers by default from the second-hand fumes of three-dozen lit cigarettes.

At his other show in Strathmore Hall, Folsom allows us to clear our lungs with a remarkable display of beautiful and intelligent landscape paintings, a subject he has been visiting since the 1960s. Located in an historic mansion in North Bethesda, Maryland, Strathmore Hall is another great art gem in our region, which provides affordable, accessible, multi-disciplinary arts programming to more than 100,000 people each year. It is located at 10701 Rockville Pike in Bethesda (301/530-0540). The show runs from September 10 through November 2.

Here we find Edna again, still flying over refreshing open landscapes. Fred Folsom explains her best: "I don't do UFOs, ESP, or X-Files, so Edna was a surprise."

"It was late fall of 1996, at the end of a long week of landscape painting. As I stared vacantly at my canvas, a flying nude woman appeared in the picture. She was just there, gliding in the sky. With a blink she was gone. She had seemed timeless, as natural and unexpected as a rainbow. Where had she come from? I did a thumbnail sketch of the vision and began to ponder its source."

He continues, "Suddenly flying figures seemed to be everywhere -- Michelangelo, Rubens, Tiepolo, '30s deco sculpture, movies, TV ads, and the angel thing. Individually or collectively these things didn't ring true. My flying woman wasn't born of art study or entertainment. The image was embossed in my soul -- but where had she come from?"

Folsom reminisces, "In the spring of '98, I was watching a friend tune up his souped-up GTO. The 720-horsepower engine thundered and as the earth and I trembled... BINGO! I saw myself back in old Tenleytown as an 8-year-old kid, transfixed by the hood ornament on a brand new car. It was a naked, chromium woman! My eyes were as big as hubcaps. What was she doing there?"

"Back in the '50s cars were a big deal; they were rolling hope! Cars were rounded and female, morphing year by year into rockets," he adds. "Clearly the shiny, naked lady propelled the car."

Desperately Seeking Edna

Folsom fell in love with the vision offered by his metallic woman. Last summer, after completing a few Edna paintings, Folsom set out to find his childhood love, and through Roger White, the Smithsonian's car expert, found Edna, as lovely and aloof as ever, on a 1953 Nash.

Folsom's Edna is not nostalgia; she is the artist's plated metal goddess, his "bold figurehead on a ship's prow -- Woman Eternal." Edna piloted Americans and their cars through millions of highway miles, and 46 years later, bolted still to rusted cars in junkyards, she was finally set free through his paintings.

Free to fly in his fanciful landscapes, built up with dozens of glazes where light and atmosphere are captured as no camera can. Edna is free from the Nash, liberated by her childhood lover. "My part," says Folsom, "is to paint panoramas for her to fly through."

And still, there are idiots who think painting is dead

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F. Lennox Campello is a widely published art critic and writer, an award winning artist, curator and the co-owner of the two Fraser Galleries. He also serves on the Advisory Panel of several local art organizations, including the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities. For more information, visit: www.geocities.com/lennoxcampello