Guest Post: The Art of Karen Gersch — Contemporary Clowns (part one)

[post 140]

In a previous and popular post, this blog had the privilege of sharing Karen Gersch's paintings and drawings of classic clowns.  If you haven't seen it, Do Not Pass Go and instead click here immediately!

Sweet, eh?  And now that you've savored that, I won't repeat everything I already wrote about Karen, but I will plug her upcoming exhibition of paintings, Circus Lives, which runs from May 25th to June 28th on the fabuloso Waterfront Museum barge in Red Hook, Brooklyn, an amazing decades-old project of David Sharps, nice guy and highly talented clown, juggler, and nautical impressario.

The barge is also home to a long-running tradition of hosting a circus show every Sunday in June.  Originally called Circus Sundays, it now goes under the name of Showboat Shazzam. If you're going to be in the NYC area next month, check out the schedule of performances. And to bring it full circle, you'll never guess who produces and hosts Shazzam....  yep, none other than Karen Gersch. So come see the paintings, the shows, and Karen. Three for the price of one!

So here we go with another amazing series of clowns.  Enjoy!

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Clown, Slava's Snow Show, NYC

Clown, Slava's Snow Show, NYC

Clown, Cirque du Soleil 

Bill Irwin

Michael Davis

Jamie Adkins

Clownesse, Jamie Adkin's assistant

Tom Dougherty 

Guy La France, France

Drew Richardson & Donna Pennoyer, USA

Guy & Jean-Louis, Clowns with Le Rire Medecin, France

Ami Hattab as "Mr. Baxter"

Clown, Cirque du Soleil's "Alegria"

Clown, Cirque Gruss, France   

Plate Spinner, Cirque Gruss

Stiltwalker, Big Apple Circus

That's it for now. Don't want to crash your browser but — not to worry — part two of Contemporary Clowns is coming very soon.  In the meantime, check out Karen's web site by clicking here.

Guest Post: The Art of Karen Gersch — Classic Clowns

[post 114]

It is a real privilege to be able to present the work of Karen Gersch on this blog.  I've known Karen for over three decades (though we're both 29), and she's quite the Renaissance woman: clown, acrobat, painter, educator, producer — and for all of those three decades New York City's hostess to ever so many variety artists visiting from around the globe.  Karen & I even performed in the Hubert Castle Circus together with Fred Yockers in the late 70s, and I want to say in my defense that any stories she may tell about me from those days are nothing more than wine-induced fabrications.  I thought the best way to introduce Karen to the blog was this series of her paintings and drawings of classic clowns.  We'll follow up in later posts with her look at more contemporary clowns, and some of her own performance writing.  But first some links:
Karen's current exhibition at the Blueberry Music & Art House in Greenwich, Connecticut
Karen's art web site.
Karen's Showboat Shazzam (formerly Circus Sundays) series at the fabuloso Waterfront Museum (this is last year's schedule, but check back for this June's events)
Karen's Acrobrats performance web site.
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Little Tich





Les Albano

 François Fratellini

Albert Fratellini

 

Grock

Charlie Chaplin

Buster Keaton

European Clown Trio

José Carlos Queirolo

João Cardona

Chicharrão & Pimentão

 

Otto Griebling

Oleg Popov

Lou Jacobs & Mike Padillo

 

Slava