Whoa - the gallery was hopping last night with the opening of the new show. The place was jammed with people actually looking at the art and talking to the five artists who were present. Excellent fun.
I thought I'd just grit it out but ended up having a wonderful time. I just stood in the back near my wall of paintings and took in all the positive remarks, many by people who had no clue who the artist was.
Bokor, bought this one - Landscape #1360
which was inspired by a stripe of late sun
on the fields at Lila Berle's sheep farm
up the road. That was very flattering plus
Sandy Smith - her husband and co-owner of the eponymous
gallery said I had gotten better
and liked this one below which seemed to be the
show favorite:
Up the street at the Geoffrey Young Gallery there were tons of local hipsters looking at Jonathan Hankey's photographs which are wonderful, simple, unpretentious photos of mostly local scenes. Probably no one but me realized that our images were both mainly drawn from the same area - Locust Hill, Baldwin Hill and the sheep farm - we both live near Coon's Dairy farm and must have the same visual images imbedded in our collective craniums.
Some people were very interested in the process and materials I use so I gave mini-lectures on the properties of casein and gouache and enamel and tried to encourage people like Christina Dubois to get inspired and start painting again. Unfortunately, Karen Inglehart wasn't there - I love her paintings and her palette and would love to meet her. http://www.karen-iglehart.com
To top off the evening, I had dinner at Bizen with Kelley DeLorenzo and David Anderegg. I told Kelley she was my personal archivist after she remembered something about me from the way past that I had totally forgotten. (We met in kindergarten in Upper Montclair, NJ). She said she had learned from my first show that despite my sharp tongued highly critical nature, I was an optimist at heart. Which is so true.
It was a fantastic meal with great conversation. I'm inspired and can't wait to get back to painting.
