Before and after

The contrast between the appearance of a work of art which has been professionally restored and one which continues to suffer from at least some of the ills which art can be heir to can seem nearly miraculous, or so subtle as to be invisible to the casually observant eye. The ills are numerous and reflect the fragility of many if not most works of art. Variations in relative humidity can cause a canvas to shrink or expand. Variations in temperature can do the same. With time and continued fluxations, tiny cracks may appear and grow into fissures that cross the surface of the painting. The paint may actually lift away from the canvas; if the cleavage is sufficiently severe, flakes of paint may fall away from the surface and be lost. Both paint and canvas may become so dry that either can threaten to turn to powder when touched. The artist may use a stretcher too flimsy for his canvas. The canvas itself may develop draws, sags and buckles, all of which threaten the paint on the surface.Or the artist may use paints and glazes which are chemically incompatible; he or she may use materials that are destined to self-destruct. (As an example, for a large number of drawings, Franz Kline used paper that was expected to last only a year or two: pages torn from a Manhattan telephone directory). Apart from such inherent vices, a work hands of a viewer reaching to fleetingly explore the actual texture of a surface leave behind a residue of oils and grime. Rings or buttons or fingernails may mar the surface. In time, soil and scratches multiply and the original work becomes defaced. These problems and dozens of combinations and variations the conservator must face. Some difficulties have quick solutions. More usually, conservations and restoration is painstaking business. Compounding the problems themselves is the fact that the contemporary conservator refuses to simply repaint where part of an image is lost. Further, conservation now is done so that it may be reversed. The intent is to recover the artist\u27s intent as fully as possible without supplying counterfeit passages which fuse with and become a permanent part of the work

Ronald Slowinski

This exhibition is the result of a visit to the studio of Ron Slowinski in 1981. Such a visit is the surest test of one\u27s reaction to the artist\u27s work seen on previous occasions only in isolated examples. Such partial contacts are frequently inconclusive, but in the instance of Slowinski the impression made was sufficient to create an appetite for more. The several hours spent looking at the accumulated work of four or five years was exciting to say the least and impressive to the degree that I came away from the experience convinced that here was an artist who could and should be seen in the demanding context of a large exhibition. Fortunately I made this visit in the company of Doriald Doe whose enthusiasm for what we had seen matched my own and, fortunately as well, he is eminently qualified to enter into the critical dialogue with the artist which is the necessary context for the organization of such an exhibition. The result is, in every respect, the confirmation of our original impression. Here is an artist whose commitment to the business of art is total, an artist whose activity in our midst establishes a qualitative standard of a high order. The exhibition in itself represents the Sheldon Gallery\u27s commitment to the critical appraisal and endorsement of the best work being done in our region, which is part of the best from anywhere

Ronald Slowinski

This exhibition is the result of a visit to the studio of Ron Slowinski in 1981. Such a visit is the surest test of one\u27s reaction to the artist\u27s work seen on previous occasions only in isolated examples. Such partial contacts are frequently inconclusive, but in the instance of Slowinski the impression made was sufficient to create an appetite for more. The several hours spent looking at the accumulated work of four or five years was exciting to say the least and impressive to the degree that I came away from the experience convinced that here was an artist who could and should be seen in the demanding context of a large exhibition. Fortunately I made this visit in the company of Doriald Doe whose enthusiasm for what we had seen matched my own and, fortunately as well, he is eminently qualified to enter into the critical dialogue with the artist which is the necessary context for the organization of such an exhibition. The result is, in every respect, the confirmation of our original impression. Here is an artist whose commitment to the business of art is total, an artist whose activity in our midst establishes a qualitative standard of a high order. The exhibition in itself represents the Sheldon Gallery\u27s commitment to the critical appraisal and endorsement of the best work being done in our region, which is part of the best from anywhere

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Before and after

The contrast between the appearance of a work of art which has been professionally restored and one which continues to suffer from at least some of the ills which art can be heir to can seem nearly miraculous, or so subtle as to be invisible to the casually observant eye. The ills are numerous and reflect the fragility of many if not most works of art. Variations in relative humidity can cause a canvas to shrink or expand. Variations in temperature can do the same. With time and continued fluxations, tiny cracks may appear and grow into fissures that cross the surface of the painting. The paint may actually lift away from the canvas; if the cleavage is sufficiently severe, flakes of paint may fall away from the surface and be lost. Both paint and canvas may become so dry that either can threaten to turn to powder when touched. The artist may use a stretcher too flimsy for his canvas. The canvas itself may develop draws, sags and buckles, all of which threaten the paint on the surface.Or the artist may use paints and glazes which are chemically incompatible; he or she may use materials that are destined to self-destruct. (As an example, for a large number of drawings, Franz Kline used paper that was expected to last only a year or two: pages torn from a Manhattan telephone directory). Apart from such inherent vices, a work hands of a viewer reaching to fleetingly explore the actual texture of a surface leave behind a residue of oils and grime. Rings or buttons or fingernails may mar the surface. In time, soil and scratches multiply and the original work becomes defaced. These problems and dozens of combinations and variations the conservator must face. Some difficulties have quick solutions. More usually, conservations and restoration is painstaking business. Compounding the problems themselves is the fact that the contemporary conservator refuses to simply repaint where part of an image is lost. Further, conservation now is done so that it may be reversed. The intent is to recover the artist\u27s intent as fully as possible without supplying counterfeit passages which fuse with and become a permanent part of the work

Santa Fe Taos

Few artists\u27 colonies have richer legacies than those of Santa Fe and Taos. Much of that Southwest tradition is represented in the collections of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery. For that reason alone, it seems especially right that the Sheldon organize this exhibition of contemporary art from Northern New Mexico. There are, of course, other connections. Recently, the Sheldon mounted an exhibition of the work of Georgia O\u27Keeffe. Bernard Plossu, Joan Myers, and William Clift, all photographers working in New Mexico, have recently been exhibited here. In sum, the Sheldon\u27s collections and exhibition calendars reflect the vitality of art from New Mexico. This exhibition proposes that the vitality of painting - and with less conspicuous proof, printmaking and the crafts - continues. Various circumstances dictated regretable omissions, however. Agnes Martin is not included and Juan Hamilton is not. Neither are Allen and Gloria Graham nor John Wenger. It is at least true, however that both Martin and Hamilton are much more closely associated with their galleries in New York than their residences in Galisteo and Tesuque, respectively. In accord with the curatorial intentions which shaped this exhibition, artists who do not reside in Northern New Mexico were generally not included. There are a few exceptions, but those were allowed on the grounds that their work was first shown -.and continues to be shown - by galleries in Santa Fe or Taos. The difficulties of developing this exhibition, at long distance and with budget restrictions of a very real kind, were many. I am much indebted to Linda Durham, Donald and Carolyn Eason, Marcia York of the Heydt-Bair Gallery, Elaine Horwitch and both Ann Wilson and Julie Sasse of the Elaine Horwitch Galleries, Talley Richards, Thorn Andriola of the New Gallery and Larry Bell and his assistant, Arabella Lalla. Thanks too must go to Philip Yenawine, whose early interest in this project did much for its success. The assistance of Smith-Kramer Art Connections has been crucial to every step in developing the tour of this exhibition

Geometric Abstraction in America

Precisionism and Regionalism were the dominant styles of the late Twenties and early Thirties; the isolationist and chauvinistic attitudes which encouraged conservative imagery of the American Scene generated scorn for Modernist art. Sounding very like the critics who derided the Armory Show of 1913, Thomas Craven (for example), writing in the New York American in 1936 about A. E. Gallatin\u27s purchase of Picasso\u27s Three Musicians for his Museum of Living Art, set a standard for vituperation: Rallying around a fallen idol, the vested interests, collectors, nuts and professional esthetes have joined hands in a last desperate campaign to restore the tarnished majesty of Picasso, a king without a kingdom, a ruler with few loyal syncophants and courtiers but with few subjects in the ranks of genuine artists... Such courtiers , Craven went on to claim, were exponents of Bohemian infantilism who wrote volumes of pseudo-philosophic drivel on the advantages of cubes and cones. In the same month- November- that Craven was composing these views, the avant garde in New York was organizing itself, meeting to discuss the formation of a school and forum which would allow them to develop and discuss their artistic aims. 2 The artists were divided among themselves. One group, led by such artists as Arshile Gorky and Willem deKooning, were deeply influenced by Surrealism-however indebted they were to the Cubist tradition. The other was strongly influenced by the ideas and the art of the De Stijl group, principally Mondrian, as well as the Constructivists and Suprematists. The profound separation between the emerging traditions of Surrealism and geometric abstraction precluded the formation of a single curriculum. There were no serious obstacles to a joint exhibition, however, and several additional meetings generated , in April of 1937, the first American Abstract Artists exhibition. Not every artist joined the AAA.-Davis and Gorky refused to participate, for example-but the size of the exhibition grew steadily. By 1946, in a Whitney Museum exhibition catalogue, Lloyd Goodrich could accurately observe that about the middle 1930\u27s began a new trend toward abstraction, particularly among the younger artists, until today it is one of the dominant tendencies in our art

Of Steel and Brick And Ordinary Things: The Sculpture of Carl Andre

64 Steel Square represents Carl Andre\u27s first use of modular units of steel. Dating from 1967, it reflects nearly all of the tenents of Minimalism which Wade Saunders and his generation of sculptors (who are now gaining prominence) have labored to abandon. Precisely as the title* indicates, the work is a square of steel plates, each measuring, with minor variations, eight by eight inches . Those dimensions, squared, produce both the size and the form of the completely installed work. The blunt, arithmetrical logic of the work is underscored by the conspicuous absence of the artist\u27s hand: it is not carved or welded or, in some overtly skillful way, shaped. Instead, 64 Steel Square is simply uncrated and arranged in a format which reiterates the shape of its component parts. Those parts themselves were obtained from an industrial scrap yard. Although each has accumulated its own rusty/encrusted patina, there is no assigned order of juxtaposition; any arrangement is regarded as successful as any other. That the 64 plates may be installed in any of thousands of different arrangements within the boundaries of the square emphasizes the sculptor\u27s indifference to traditional levels of artistic control. Further, it points to the non-relational character of the work. That is, the work not only relates to nothing but itself, but also has no composed internal relationships. The steel plates are simply those steel plates. There is no intention to exploit the quality of the encrusted surface patina, or to arrange the elements of the work in a balanced and harmonious composition . Instead, the plates are merely put on the floor, one next to another, in repetitious sequence

LARRY BELL- MAJOR WORKS IN GLASS

For years, the elusive qualities of Larry Bell\u27s work have been challenging the descriptive abilities of critical writers. Here, for example, is Janet Kutner, writing in ARTS in January, 1976, about Bell\u27s largest work, The Iceberg and Its Shadow: The zigzag configuration of flat and peaked tips related visually to an iceberg\u27s form and, additionally, lines and planes converged at unexpected points to create strange apparitions like the tips of icebergs .... And this is Christopher Knight, writing in the June 14, 1981 Los Angeles Herald Examiner: The translucent portions of the glass yield the sense of an almost tactile interior space within the glass cube, as if it were filled with fog. That. coupled with the endless maze of angled reflections of floor, walls, glass panels, and the viewer himself, generates both a perceptual and kinesthetic dialogue .... However lucid and informative these-or other-descriptions might be, they cannot approach the extraordinary experience found in encountering the works included in this exhibition. Quite apart from the fact that Bell\u27s work now has an established place in the history of modern sculpture, the quality of that experience alone would bring his work to the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery. In presenting this exhibition, I am personally indebted to many. I must express special gratitude to Norman Geske, the Sheldon\u27s director; Helen Duven, the Sheldon\u27s administrative assistant; preparator James Roberts; and museum assistant, Renee Anthone. As is repeatedly the case, this exhibition could not have been planned without the support of the Nebraska Art Association - an organization which has thrived for nearly a century, and continues to draw to its membership men and women who effectively complete the dozens of tasks which attach to every important exhibition. This catalog is made possible through the interest and generous support of both Martin Massengale, Chancellor of the University of Nebraska- Lincoln, and Ronald Roskens, President of the University of Nebraska. Finally, special thanks are owed to Larry Bell and his assistant. Arabella Bond. Both of them gave generously of their time and proved to be endlessly cooperative at every step in the development of this exhibition

Goldberg

This exhibition, the second in the Resource and Response Series, assembles approximately a score of works which span nearly four decades of Michael Goldberg\u27s career as a painter. In so doing, this exhibition also reflects upon perhaps the most fabled chapter in the history of American art: the emergence of the New York School and, with it, the creation of an independent, self-generating, and specifically American art.\u27 Here, as for all shows in this series, the intent is not to rival a full retrospective, but to develop a focused response to prominent issues and concerns in the world of contemporary art. In speaking about his work, Goldberg remarked (with a level of pretension hovering around absolute zero), I think of my art as being a little like a slinky toy. It expands and then gathers itself into the same shape. What this exhibition offers, is the opportunity to suggest some of the ways in which Goldberg\u27s work, through all of its changes, remains an expansion and a gathering of the artist\u27s original ideas. At the same time, this exhibition provides a chance to question the place in American art history which criticism, until very recently, had designated for Goldberg and other members of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists. That place has been assigned largely, it would seem, because the lure and tradition of the New, by the middle Fifties, was altogether compelling. As Robert Rosenblum recently admitted, I was already aware that Rothko and Still, Pollock and de\u27Kooning were heavyweights and spoke for past achievement; but I couldn\u27t wait to turn the page and find out what would happen next. Further, he writes, ... , for one, thought I could write off most of the work by [Norman Bluhm, Michael Goldberg, Grace Hartigan, AI Held, Alfred Leslie and Joan Mitchell] as irritating anachronisms, the product of loyal but growingly irrelevant satellites. I was anxious to sweep them under the carpet and get on with the evolution of art.\u27 In this context, it is important to note, if very eliptically, that the art of the first generation, of Rothko, Pollock, de Kooning, - and perhaps a dozen others - owed a great deal to tradition, and little of that American