Bell Tower Art Show

Posted on | September 15, 2009 |

Two weeks ago I had no idea that I was organizing a huge art show but—here we are!  Somehow we’ve gathered 12 wonderful artists together and mounted a show in 2 giant condos that have been carved out of an old church. The opening is tonight!  The way it all came about is that one of the board members of The Arsenal Center for the Arts is a brilliant real estate man and wondered if an art show might bring attention to this new condo project.  When I came back from vacation I was asked to organize it.  I was too jet-lagged to say no!  Two weeks later…wow!  It looks great.

There were the 4 studio artists from the Center to start and I invited 8 more.  Everyone said yes and we designated Saturday morning as drop-off day.  Of course, it was pouring rain that day but we had the use of the underground garage so it worked out well.  In came the art and somehow the whole show fell together.  I’d had a few short nights of sleep where I woke up at 5 in the morning, made myself a cup of tea and sat in bed with a notebook trying to sketch out the space and think about where each artist would go. Just made a rough plan and decided to hope for the best.  When I saw the place I had no idea how much art we’d need.  I’d never done this before so just guessed and told people to bring 6 pieces each.  Then I wondered if it would be enough so I said to add a few extras, if they liked.  And so they did!  We have so much art that every room is like a separate gallery featuring an individual artist—over 6,000 square feet of art space!  And by some quirk of fate it all worked out perfectly.

The fun was in thinking about what artists would show well together.  One artists does sensitive pastel landscapes, another does sensitive and very bold portraits—that’s Michael Crockett above.  What they’re doing is so different that it would be hard to take in both at once.  So, the trick was to separate with time and space.  One is on the ground floor, another a couple of floors up in a beautiful quiet room.

Tonight is the opening.  I’m hoping to get some video on the FLIP.  More soon.  The photos here are by Russell Hunter, our talented nephew who was staying with us for a couple of weeks.  There are more on my Facebook page with credits—I’ve made them available so everyone can see.  Participating artists are—Yuko Adachi, Aparna Agrawal, Lyn Angermeier, Meghann Brideau, Michael Crockett, Cathy Garnett, Deborah Putnoi, Dawn Scaltreto, Julia Talcott, Kaetlyn Wilcox, Susu Wing and me.

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