March 22, 2008

Invitations to Marcy Dunn Ramsey’s exhibit – Convergence – go in the mail today. Join us on Friday, April 4 from 5-8pm. We will be celebrating April’s First Friday with the fruits of Marcy’s labor over the last year. The exhibit will run through May 4, 2008. The Chester River has long been her muse and continues to give forth its riches. The new work is vibrating with color and she captures and makes visible the energy created when wind, water, and grass converge. Although her stunning oil canvases are based on natural phenomena, I have always related to her as an abstract artist. Something beyond the landscape is going on and it has more to do with the laying down of color and the negative spaces she creates. There is a reverberation in the mind/soul that transcends the imagery. Ramsey’s own words may prove a better guide in navigating this new body of work:

The current series of paintings is a meditation on the enduring theme of impermanence. When disparate elements encounter each other a convergence occurs that can produce a momentary state of recognition; seemingly inconsequential phenomena can become mirrors of a state of mind.* MDR

Grace Mitchell returns to the Gallery courtesy of the Allen Sheppard Gallery in New York. A wrong turn, when prowling galleries in Chelsea, brought me face to face with my first Mitchell. It was literally glowing on the wall. Mitchell’s multi-layered oil on panel paintings are burnished to an almost buttery sheen but a gouged desiccated quality remains visible just under the surface. They are at once ethereal and gritty. She, too, uses landscape as a point of departure. And then she rips your heart out. Mitchell’s paintings haunt. Because of the labor-intensive methods she employs, there will be a limited number of her works in the exhibit.

Sculptor and ikebana scholar, Seiko Behr will reprise aspects of her one-woman show at the Academy Art Museum last November. The “disparate elements” Ramsey refers to in her artist statement (see above) seem to sum up in toto the magic Seiko conjures with “inconsequential phenomena.” A slender reed balanced on the edge of her clay vessel has the capacity through her talent to drive home the “enduring theme of impermanence” while still softening the blow of our mortality. The balance she achieves is elemental.

Rounding out the exhibit, we will pair sculptor Shelley Robzen’s white marble sculptures and black patinated bronzes with Mitchell’s paintings. In an odd way, Robzen’s sculptures ground the show. Not in the ordinary sense of rooting us to the earth, but instead, by allowing us to remain in the mind. Ramsey, Mitchell, and Behr rub up against our sensibilities. It is not enough for them to have us merely engage with their work on one level, they insistently demand more. Robzen’s elegant, cerebral work gives us a respite. She invites us dwell in another realm - … where life resounds, a clear pure note in the silence.*


News & Notes

• Karen Hubacher – Group Exhibition & lecture Series – DC Public Library. Celebrating Washington DC Women Artists during Women’s History Month, March 1-28, 2008. Call 202-727-0321 for information.

• Leigh Wen – The Beacon Institute Gallery, Beacon, New York. March 8-July 8, 2008. www.thebeaconinstitute.org. Ms. Wen, whose work is currently on display at the American Embassy in Botswana (in Southern Africa), will be traveling to Botswana in April to conduct workshops for local artists and children, at the request of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Upon her return, she will give a public talk at The Beacon Institute on Saturday, April 26 at 2:00 p.m. about her experiences in Botswana. On Saturday, June 7, also at 2:00 p.m., she will give another public talk about her artistic process. Both events are free and open to the public, thanks to an educational grant from Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union.

• Heidi Fowler was selected as a 2007 Grantee by the Franz and Virginia Bader Fund of Washington, DC.

• Gallery artist Celia Pearson will participate in a lecture/slide presentation at the Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton, Maryland. "The most outstanding topiary garden in America." The Garden Club of America. For more information: http://www.ladewgardens.com/index2.html

Wednesday, April 2 • 10:30 a.m. in the Ladew Studio

Style Magazine senior editor Laura Wexler, garden writer Kathy Hudson and photographer Celia Pearson share the process of finding and showcasing area gardens in the pages of Style. Gardens are included from past Ladew tours as well as many outstanding Baltimore urban, artists’ and roof-top gardens. Laura Wexler is the author of the nonfiction book, Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America. She lives in Baltimore , where she is on the faculty of the Goucher College MFA in Creative Nonfiction and founder of The Stoop Storytelling Series. Kathy Hudson has written for Style Magazine for ten years and has become their primary garden writer. She is a regular columnist for Smart Woman magazine and The BaltimoreMessenger. Celia Pearson’s work has been featured in Coastal Living, Cottage Living,Metropolitan Home, Southern Accents, Chesapeake Life, and of course, Style Magazine. Book credits include Pure SEA GLASS and Wayne L. Good, Architect: Elegance, Tradition, Repose. $25 for members, $30 for non-members. Call (410) 557-9570 to make reservations.

*Dag Hammarskjold
Markings
Thus It Was

I am being driven forward
Into an unknown land.
The pass grows steeper,
The air colder and sharper.
A wind from my unknown goal
Stirs the strings
Of expectation.

Still the question:
Shall I ever get there?
There where life resounds,
A clear pure note
In the silence.

March 12, 2008

The bright green tips of the daylilies are just beginning to break through the ground in my muddy leaf infested garden. Spring cleaning beckons on all levels – Gallery and home! We’ll be closing the Gallery for two weeks to prepare for the opening of the Spring season. This is your last chance to see – Surface Tension – the show closes on Saturday, March 15.

Mary Pritchard continues to deliver on the tremendous success she achieved when we introduced her work to the Gallery during our Holiday Show. Her iconic Eastern Shore imagery is fresh, bold and dynamic. Mary will be joining the roster of Gallery artists so you will have ample opportunity to see new work, but this exhibit should not be missed!

Larry Schroth’s digital studies from Kalambaka Series will leave you champing at the bit to see what comes out of the studio when these inspiring images become the basis for his new paintings.


Chris Brownawell, Director of the Academy Art Museum, and Brian Young, their new curator, stopped by to see the show and were quite taken with Emmy Savage’s pastels. No surprise, Emmy challenges us to see the ordinary in a new dimension.

Saturday will be cold and dreary – too early for the garden, boat, or golf course. So plan a visit to Chestertown, have lunch, shop the great sales, and stop by the Gallery!

Surface Tension

Dear Friends:

The last two weeks were a whirlwind of activity as we broke down our January group show and installed our current exhibit Surface Tension. New work by Mary Pritchard and Larry Schroth grace the walls of the Front Gallery while sculpture by Seiko Behr and Leigh Wen accent the interior space. The Lower Gallery is filled with photographs, prints, and works in oil, acrylic, pastel, graphite, wood, marble and clay by Emmy Savage, Carol Rowan, Celia Pearson, Susan Tessem, Martha Oatway, Vicco Von Voss, and Claire McArdle. We had a large crowd for opening night despite a driving rain, heavy fog, and major delays at the Severn River and Bay bridges. We are always surprised and delighted by the turn out on First Fridays.

Mary Pritchard and Emmy Savage stayed until the lights went off visiting with friends and collectors before leaving at dawn the next morning for the Vermont Studio Center. Founded by artists in 1984, the Vermont Studio Center is the largest artists' and writers' Residency Program in the United States, hosting fifty visual artists and writers each month from across the country and around the world. The Studio Center provides four to twelve week studio residencies on an historic thirty building campus along the Gihon River in Johnson, Vermont, a village in the heart of the northern Green Mountains. Several Gallery artists have used the Center for an intensive studio experience and as a vehicle for exploration. One of our favorite artists, the late Edda Jakab, earmarked the Center as the recipient for donations made to her estate. It was a wonderful way for friends to honor her life and provide opportunities for artists in the future. To learn more visit: http://vermontstudiocenter.org/

The inspiration for Larry Schroth’s new Kalambaka Wall series of digital inkjet prints was drawn directly from his observations of centuries old surfaces on his recent trip to Greece. A continuation of his Roma and Italia graffiti series, Larry will use these new images as studies for paintings he hopes to create during the coming year. Those of us familiar with his paintings share with him the slightly unsettling experience of seeing ghostly images so similar to the graphic quality of his acrylics on weathered surfaces half way around world. The very human trait of mark-making continues through his vision – from the walls, to the prints, to the paintings. Master printer George Holzer was on hand to explain the technical aspects of transferring Larry’s photographic images to paper although he allowed that very little manipulation takes place. Images are not “photoshopped” but the textures and colors come alive in the process of creating the IRIS prints. Posted below are the more traditional views Larry brought home from Greece. Here's a note from Larry -

The "Kalambaka Wall Series" currently on display at the Carla Massoni Gallery grew out of a November 2007 Overseas Adventure Travel Tour my wife and I took to Greece. We were part of a group of twenty-four individuals guided by Ms. Elsa Salas, a Greek National born in Athens. Elsa speaks four languages (Greek, English, Italian and French) and has a degree in art history from the Sorbonne. She was a terrific resource, and had a wonderful sense of humor.

We spent a week touring the Greek mainland via tour bus (Athens, Arachova, Delphi, Kalambaka) and a week on the Panorama - a three masted sailing schooner, which allowed us to visit several Greek Islands (Tinos, Delos, Naxos, Syros and Santorini) then back to Pireaus - the main port of Athens.

Here are a few of the images from the trip - enjoy!

Gallery artists Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson of Idiots’Books fame (The Next Generation – 2007) invite you to come out of mid-winter hibernation the weekend of February 15-16 for Idiots’Fest 2008, a festival in celebration of literature and music and the overlap between the two.

The eclectic lineup of guest artists includes 2007 National Book Award Finalist Jim Shepard, debut novelist Brian Slattery, leading string theorist Brian Wecht, NYC comic Victor Wishna, and Episcopal priest/punk rocker Drew Bunting among others.

A reading and acoustic concert Friday evening at the Washington College Literary House will be followed by a daylong extravaganza Saturday at Tom Martin’s Bookplate on Cross Street. The entertainment is free to all, and a full spread of slow-cooked Virginia barbeque (ribs, brisket, chicken, and stir-fried veggies) will be available for $10 a head. In his thirty years of catering, barbeque master Sam Gadell has cooked for such discerning luminaries as Harry Connick Jr., Bonnie Raitt, and Victor Borga. Which is to say, he knows what he’s doing, folks. Pete Brocker’s Play it Again Sam will be open late for those wanting to enjoy a glass of wine or cold beer with their dinner.

Visit www.idiotsbooks.com/STR.html for the full schedule, performer bios, and more about the idiot hosts.

Plan to stop by the Gallery to see the new exhibit and then wander up the street to support this artistic endeavor. Matthew and Robbi are such talented young artists and we hope to see you next weekend. We’ll be covering the Gallery in shifts so we don’t miss it either!

P.S. Gallery hours for February have been extended. Too many of you have been making the trek mid-week. We will be open on Thursday and Friday from 11 – 4 and on Saturday from 10 – 5. We’ll go back to our regular hours in March.

new post

Dear Friends of the Gallery:

Welcome to our new "blog"! I had to go online to get a definition of the word….my trusty Random House Dictionary proved outdated.

A blog (short for weblog) is an online journal or diary of an individual's opinions and latest news that is updated regularly.

We will use this site to keep you up-to-date on happenings in the Gallery and to provide information on your favorite artists. I will endeavor to post materials on a biweekly basis but don't hold my feet to the fire on that one.

How did it get to be mid-January? If the last two weeks are any indication of the warp speed this year portends, we are all in serious trouble. January is usually our quiet month but we have been busy reorganizing the Gallery and trying to use the internet more effectively as a means of communication. Please sign-up for our email invitations by going to the website: www.massoniart.com and clicking on Information. All data will be protected by our security measures.

Museums in the area continue to benefit by the seeds we have planted. Marc Castelli's work returned from the Forecastle Gallery at the National Maritime Center in Norfolk, Virginia last week. His twenty-four watercolors composed a one-man exhibition that graced their gallery for all of 2007. No sooner did we unload the van than we were packing up his painting - Opening Day/ Betty Jean off Cape Charles - one of the favorites from the Norfolk show and shipping it to Tangier Island where it was recently acquired by the Tangier Island Museum & Interpretive Cultural Center.

Several of Castelli's America's Cup paintings will be headed off later this month to the Museum of America and the Sea at the Mystic Seaport for the 29th Annual Modern Marine Masters Exhibition opening in April 2008 at the Maritime Gallery. Marc tells me he's hard at work on paintings for his annual one-man exhibition at our Gallery in May 2008. I wonder how many of this year's paintings will be destined for museums? Or better yet, your collection!

The Academy Art Museum – Winter 2007/2008 magazine arrived two weeks ago with a full color rendition of Greg Mort's Universe Unfolding on the cover. The Academy located in Easton, Maryland announced a promised gift of thirty-three Mort paintings by long-time collector David Hickman. I have known David since our early days on Capitol Hill. I was a Senate intern and he was one of the bright young turks on the Judiciary Committee staff. David has been collecting Mort's work since 1984 when he bought his first piece – a simple watercolor of yellow leaves - from an exhibit sponsored by his law firm, Covington & Burling. The Gallery is proud to have been a part in arranging this very important gift. For more information: http://www.art-academy.org/

Selections from the David H. Hickman gift as well as other gifts from the community given in honor of the Museum's 50th Anniversary will be included in an exhibition in the fall of 2008 – the kick-off of the Museum's anniversary year. This will coincide with Greg's one man exhibition planned for November 2008.

As many of you might know, I have been spending more time in Washington, DC - a self-imposed sabbatical of sorts – to visit museums, attend lectures, meet new artists, and endeavor to bring a burst of energy to the Gallery. Last Thursday, I made my way to the Phillips Collection in the first real snowstorm of the season. Silver dollar size flakes – twisting and turning in the spaces between the buildings – transformed downtown Washington into a quiet village. The feeling of floating through time continued as I explored the old and new sections of the museum. In the front room was Francis Bacon's Figure in a Landscape, always a favorite of mine. The powerful grasses in the foreground instantly reminded me of the work one of our local Chestertown artists is producing. I've long admired Emmy Savage's paintings and we plan to feature several in the February show. Also on tap for February in the Lower Gallery will be work by Leigh Wen, Celia Pearson and Carol Rowan. Carol and I had wonderful visit in her new studio just up the street from the Phillips. She is producing some stunning new work in oil and in graphite and I selected three pieces for the exhibit. Check out the great article on Carol in the February edition of ChesapeakeLife. http://www.chesapeakelifemag.com/index.php/cl/features

You've already received your invitations in the mail for our planned February exhibition, Surface Tension, featuring the work of Larry Schroth and Mary Pritchard. They will take over the Main Gallery for February First Friday. These two artists are always pushing the envelope with their explorations. No sooner did Larry return from his trip to Greece than he was in the studio working collaboratively with his printmaker George Holzer to create a new body of work based on the continuation of his graffiti imagery. Larry will post information on his trip later today.

One of the highlights of the New Year has been the opportunity to bask in the success of our daughter, Anne Leighton Massoni. I gave birth to her, but others have nurtured her talent over the years. One such mentor is curator Lillian Fitzgerald who selected two bodies of Anne's work for exhibit in Washington, DC. My husband and I attended the opening reception and artist talk at Smith Farm Center for the Healing Arts where Anne and ceramicist Bill Mould are featured in an exhibit entitled Transformation. We were overwhelmed by their sensitive presentation and the work of Center's staff. Anne is exhibiting a very personal body of work – prescence.in – created especially for this venue. The exhibit runs through February 28. Fitzgerald also selected Anne's newest work – yours & mine – for a solo show at the National Institutes of Health through March 1, 2008. Visit Fitzgerald's blog to learn more about both exhibits. http://lillianfitzgerald.blogspot.com/2008/01/anne-leighton-massoni.html

See you on February 1, 2008!!