Windham Art Gallery - August 2008

New Lecture Series!

Our 10x10 Silent Auction has a newdate! Preview
October 3-11, 2008, 12-5 PM
Auction Closing Party Sat. Oct. 11, 6-8 PM

August Featured Artists" Exhibit

Cool Work for Hot Days

August 1 - 31

Opening Reception:
Friday, Ausust 1, 2008 5-8 PM

Laura "Lola" Baltzel	Carolyn Nelson
Judy Hawkins	Scott Nelson
Lesley Heathcote	Robin Stronk
Meredith Ingersoll

SURVIVING THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER: COOL WORK at WAG

The Windham Art Gallery is pleased to present Cool Work for Hot Days, featuring the work of WAG artist-members Laura "Lola" Baltzell, Judy Hawkins, Lesley Heathcote, Meredith Ingersoll, Carolyn Nelson, Scott Nelson and Robin Stronk. This exhibit runs Friday, August 1-Sunday, August 31, with an opening reception on Friday, August 1, 5:00-8:00 PM during Gallery Walk.

“This show is about the season of summer and my work plays with color that is hot and lush,” Carolyn Nelson—the show’s curator and an exhibiting artist commented. Her painting, Swelter, for example, is layered with a lot of green inspired by summer’s tropical rains that poured down outside her studio. The lushness and moisture of the season are also reflected, Nelson, said, in how “how things grow and become tangled and intertwined; how the garden is wrapped in vines and weeds that threaten to obliterate any plan that started in neat rows.” Robin Stronk, inspired by the flora and fauna of Costa Rica, began using a larger and more richly colored palette. She has painted an image of a ghost crab, for example, and of banana plants, which, she explained, “grow wild along roadsides everywhere. I tried to capture the rich contrast of color between the leaves, the fruit and the dramatic flower.”

Laura, “Lola,” Baltzell was struck by the simplicity of summer to create an uncluttered, but lively piece, Emperor of the Air. Known for her abstracted images and bold use of color, Baltzell says, for her, “The wide-open spaces on the canvas evoke a sense of freedom, of endless possibility.” Lesley Heathcote's recent work is a depature for an artist whose focus is usually on the animals rather than their environment. For Cool Work Heathcote has made paintings that depict the expanse of the Retreat Meadows when the Canadian geese gather for autumn migration. Judy Hawkins recent oil paintings are evocative, moody and spontaneous explorations of the landscape with water as the unifying theme, while Meredith Ingersoll depicts a vibrant red tulip, or a bright yellow sunflower. "It seems to me," she said, "that nature is the ultimate master painter. In this fast paced busy world that we live in, take a moment to stop and observe your natural surroundings. That is what painting allows me to do, reconnect with my surroundings."

WAG August Lecture Series: You Call This Modern Art?

"Joy of Life" by Henri Matisse

An exciting series of lectures will debut at the Windham Art Gallery July 31 – Aug. 28. Member and professor of art at Fitchburg State College, Susan Wadsworth will lead a series of lectures on understanding modern art, answering such questions as “Why is this abstract work even called art?” She will show how abstraction developed from the work of Monet, noting how his late water lilies lead to the dripped paintings of Jackson Pollock. On the way, she will show why such movements as Cubism and Abstract Expressionism developed and how you can find profound meaning in such works by Picasso, Dali and Rothko.

Thursdays, 5:30-7:00 PM. Tickets: $5 per lecture.

Thursday, July 31 Impressionism to Cubism: Monet, Matisse, Picasso

Thursday, Aug. 14 Surrealism and American Modernism: Dali to O’Keeffe

Thursday, Aug. 21 Abstract Expressionism: Is this Pollock Really Art?

Thursday, Aug. 28 Minimalism to Earthworks: Serra to Maya Lin

Susan Wadsworth has a M.F.A. in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and a M.A. in Art History from Tufts. She has exhibited her art throughout the northeast for the past 25 years and has taught since 1992 at Fitchburg State College in the Humanities Department, where she is now chair. She delights in explaining modern art, and you will undoubtedly see modern art differently after this series of informal talks.