IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STORY

The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, an artist-owned and operated gallery in downtown Hillsborough, NC, presents the seventh annual featured show, It’s All About the Story. Each year gallery members choose a local author and book or story collection to respond to in their own medium. Previous authors include Michael Malone, Jill McCorkle, Lee Smith, Allan Gurganus, John Bemis, and Nancy Peacock. This year the artists have selected a work by a person who plays a very significant role in the history of Hillsborough, Elizabeth Keckley. Her memoir, Behind the Scenes, or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, describes her remarkable journey from slavery in Hillsborough to freedom as an accomplished dressmaker and confidante of Mary Todd Lincoln. Each piece in the group show, It’s All About the Story, is inspired by Keckley’s inspiring book. The show runs from February 1st–February 20th.

Reception

February 10

3-4:30

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

Resolutions

The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts welcomes in the New Year with its fifth annual statewide juried show, RESOLUTIONS 2019.  RESOLUTIONS 2019 will run from January 7^th to January 31^st, 2019  and will showcase the work of artists from across North Carolina. Following  the success of the juried shows of the previous four years, HGA held its open call to artists for RESOLUTIONS 2019 this fall.  Artists from throughout the state entered works in a wide variety of media .  This year’s exhibit features work in metal, wood, ceramic, textile, and photography.  Also represented are works in oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, and encaustic. As in previous years, the exhibit has drawn participation from artists living as far east as Wilmington and as far west as Asheville.  RESOLUTIONS is one of a very few art exhibits dedicated specifically to North Carolina artists.  The artist-owners of the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts have enjoyed the new challenges of organizing and curating the RESOLUTIONS exhibits.  Each year’s exhibit presents the group with unique situations, testing the artist-group’s creativity in new ways.

Guest juror for awards for RESOLUTIONS 2019 will be John Coffey, Deputy Director for Art and Research and the Becher Curator of American and Modern Art of the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh.  A native of Raleigh, Coffey holds undergraduate degrees in History and Art History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a Masters degree in Art History from Williams College. In his years at the NCMA, Coffey has been instrumental in making the museum a nationally renowned institution.   An Artists Reception and Juror’s Talk will be held on Friday, January 25^th, from 6-9 pm.  All works in the show are for sale.

About the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts:

The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts is owned and operated by 22 local artists and represents these established artists exhibiting contemporary fine art and fine craft. The Gallery’s offerings include oil and acrylic paintings, pastels, sculpture, ceramics, photography, textiles, jewelry, glass, metals, encaustic, enamel, and wood. 121 N. Churton Street, Hillsborough, NC 27278. Phone: (919) 732-5001. The gallery is open 10am-6pm Monday – Saturday, and noon-4pm on Sunday. More information can be found on the HGA website: http://www.HillsboroughGallery.com

Opening Reception

Fri Jan 25

6-9

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

THE ART OF GIVING

Each holiday season the members of the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts transform the gallery to showcase original ornaments and hand-made gifts. The gallery’s 22 members work in a variety of media, providing a wide array of fine art and fine craft for holiday shoppers. The glass art includes hand-blown vessels, ornaments, solar lights, paperweights, and jewelry. Fiber art on display includes framed fabric collages and hand dyed stitched cloth. The jewelry in the show covers a variety of styles and techniques, from copper and bronze to sterling and fine silver necklaces, earrings, bracelets and rings, some with gold accents and stones. Visitors will also find metal sculpture, handmade art dolls, pottery, turned wood, and carved ironwood with turquoise and silver inlay. Fine art photography, oil and acrylic painting, scratchboard, and mixed media work festively surround the three dimensional pieces on pedestals.

Come explore the wonderful art exhibited at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts; you will find a perfect gift for that special person.

 

Opening Reception

Nov 30

6-9

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

OCAG

Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Previews Orange County Artists Guild Studio Tour

Hillsborough Gallery members Linda Carmel, Ali Givens, Marcy Lansman, Eduardo Lapetina, Alice Levinson, Ellie Reinhold, Mike Salemi, Jason Smith, and Pringle Teetor are included in a preview show for the Orange County Studio Tour.

Orange County Artists Guild Open Studio Tour Preview Show, Oct.22-Nov.11 at HGA
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. – Oct. 16, 2018 – PRLog — This marks the 24th year that the Orange County Artists Guild will host its Annual Open Studio Tour. During the first two weekends in November, more than eighty artists located throughout Orange County, including Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, and surrounding areas will be participating in this juried event and opening their studios to visitors who will discover where the creative design happens!

For the eighth year, Pringle Teetor and Linda Carmel will be showing together at Carmel’s home studio, 101 Huntington Drive, Chapel Hill, #53 on the tour. Pringle’s blown glass and Linda’s textured paintings complement each other perfectly. There will be plenty to see and touch.

Ali Givens returns to the studio tour for her second year. Ali creates fabric collages that are landscapes, cityscapes and still lifes sewn from hand-painted cotton, colorful batiks and other natural fibers. Her studio is #12 on the tour located at 3611 Mijos Lane, Chapel Hill.

Marcy Lansman returns to the tour for her 13th year. She will be showing at the studio of Nancy Smith at 201 Morningside Drive in Carrboro.  The number is #35. Marcy paints with acrylics and her work has evolved from realistic to more abstract, expressive of personal insights and emotions.

Eduardo Lapetina’s studio is located at 318 North Estes Drive, Chapel Hill, #54 on the tour map. This is his tenth year participating on the tour. Lapetina will show new abstract paintings with vibrant colors and in various sizes including very large pieces. His paintings are worked in complete solitude. They represent the discoveries of the unconscious mind. In the artist’s words, “They hold the promise of dreams, visions, fears, and the magic of a private, secret language.”

Ellie Reinhold is joining the tour for the sixth year. She is #60 on the tour and will welcome you at her studio off Roosevelt Drive in Chapel Hill, in the neighborhood across from Cafe Driade. Reinhold explores vibrant landscapes using color, brushwork, and iconic imagery.

Michael Salemi is a woodturner who is showing jointly with Miriam Sagasti at her studio (#21) at 1604 Meadow Ln., Chapel Hill. Michael’s work includes both traditional woodturning forms: bowls, plates and platters, and unusual pieces such as ikebanas.

Alice Levinson will be exhibiting her contemporary wall-hung textile pieces. Each is rich in color and texture, and composed of hand-dyed fabric, densely sewn. Her studio is #16 on the map, 3604 Pasture Road, Hillsborough.

Jason Smith creates one of a kind metal sculptures in steel and copper using reclaimed material. His sculpture is abstract. The manipulation of form in space allows the viewer to feel rhythm and movement in his compositions. Jason’s studio is #3 on the map, 1709 NC HWY 86N, Hillsborough.

OCAG’s Open Studio Tour is a rare opportunity for art lovers from Orange County and beyond to meet artists in their places of work, to view and purchase art directly from the artist, and in many instances to watch as artists demonstrate how they create their pieces. Studio Tour brochures and maps of participants’ studios are available at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts and other area locations or on the Guild website: http://www.ocagnc.org

Many artists on this year’s tour will have work in the OCAG Preview Exhibit at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts. Their work will be on display from October 22 through November 11, 2018. This preview show is a wonderful opportunity for a first look at the work on the tour and can help you plan your tour route. An opening reception for the exhibit will be held on Friday, October 26th from 6-9pm at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, located in the Mercantile Building at 121 North Churton Street in historic downtown Hillsborough, North Carolina.

The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts is owned and operated by 22 local artists and represents these established artists exhibiting contemporary fine art and fine craft. The Gallery’s offerings include oil and acrylic paintings, pastels, sculpture, ceramics, photography, textiles, jewelry, glass, metals, encaustic, enamel, and wood. The gallery is open 10am-6pm Monday –Thursday, 10am-9pm Friday/Saturday and noon-4pm on Sunday.
121 N. Churton Street, Hillsborough • (919) 732-5001 For more information visit www.HillsboroughGallery.com

Opening Reception

October 26

6-9

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

TRILOGY

 

Michael Selemi

The current Featured Artist show at Hillsborough Gallery of Arts is called “Trilogy.” At first, the name suggested to me nothing more than that there were three featured artists. But then it occurred to me that Trilogy suggest a challenge—making interesting triples. Stepping up to the challenge has been a lot of fun and produced some interesting pieces.

The signature threesome of the show is a group of “multi-axis” statuettes which I call Day, Night and Dusk. I made the statues from Holly, a white wood, and Wenge, a black wood. I laminated Holly and Wenge to make the blank for Dusk. I then turned the blanks around two different centers creating forms which remind me of African female figures.

A second grouping in the show is a series of “pool cue” vases. The blank for each of the vases was created by taking a core rod of wood and then adding lamination layers in contrasting colors. Turning through the blanks reveals the sort of colored curves that one sees pool cue handles.

A third grouping is a set of Cherry hollow forms each with an undercut rim. I made the forms as close to identical as I could and then distinguished each by dying the rim a different color—red, blue and a very deep purple that is nearly black.

A fourth grouping is a double set of three—six ikebana identical in all respects except for the wood employed. I chose woods that created a gradual transition from white to black by starting with Holly, then using both light and dark Cherry, then using the pinkish Ebiara, and finally using Walnut and Wenge. Each of the Ikebana is of Asian form with a square downward sloping rim and a slightly rounded crown.

A fifth group is a set of cantilevered bowls made from three different species of Australian burl. The shapes of each bowl are quite similar with the rim of the bowl following the natural edge of the burl used to make it and with the curve of the bowl continuing through the rim. The burls themselves contribute great beauty to the pieces with pleasing color gradations and swirl patterns.

I also created a group of nesting Sycamore bowls, three square-rim bowl forms in Red Hear, Purple Heart and Walnut, three plates with laminated stripes, and three small Padauk boxes with identical finials but slightly different covers.

Making threes has not only been fun but it has also challenged me to create differences Waamong wood turned pieces while preserving the feature that defines the group. The show which includes work by Marcy Lansman and Alice Levinson will be on display until October 21. I hope those who visit enjoy seeing my work as much as I enjoyed making it.

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

 

TRILOGY

Marcy Lansman

What does “mixed media” mean? The answer varies from piece to piece and artist to artist. Here’s what it means in the case of my painting, “Dreaming of Magnolias,” shown below. This piece is part of TRILOGY, the current featured artist show at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts.

Dreaming of Magnolias

Strange as it may seem, I started the piece by tearing brown paper grocery bags into random shapes and pasting them down on a white panel using acrylic “matte medium,” a fluid the consistency of thick cream that is often used as glue. The result was a brown mosaic with white “cracks,” somewhat reminiscent of a stone walk. (You can see what remains of the “cracks” in the upper right quadrant of the painting.) I have used this technique in many of my abstract paintings because I like the random linear elements it adds to the finished piece.

I covered this mosaic with fluid acrylic paint in a random pattern of neutral gray-beige tones ranging from dark to light with touches of orange, rust, red and even a little blue. I liked the resulting painting but felt that it needed something.

At the time I was taking a class in collage. The class gave me the idea of pasting photographs on top of the random gray-beige background. I used to have a huge magnolia tree in my front yard, and I have taken hundreds of photos of magnolias over the years. I blew some of them up, cut them out, and threw them down on the painting. To my surprise, I liked the effect. But I didn’t like the way the magnolias stood out against the background. I wanted them to blend in. So I used Photoshop to adjust the color of the shadows in the magnolias so that they matched the gray-beige tones in the painting. This involved a long process of trial and error. I ended up with piles of magnolia rejects, flowers photos that were too yellow or too blue or too pink. The tone needed to be just right to create the effect I wanted: the illusion that the flowers were floating on the stony background of the painting. Then out came the matte medium again, this time to paste the photos down, as seamlessly as possible. I was delighted with the result. A couple of coats of acrylic varnish and the painting was done.

When I first started making art, I painted realistic flowers in watercolor. Many viewers, especially people who are familiar with my earlier work, were convinced that I painted the flowers in “Dreaming of Magnolias” and the other mixed media pieces in the show. I can’t help feeling a little guilty as I tell them that the flowers are actually photographs collaged onto a painted background. But not so guilty that I don’t plan to continue experimenting with this technique. Maybe I’ll move on to mushrooms next.

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

Trilogy

Alice Levinson

In TRILOGY, as in each Featured Artist show, three artists come together, based upon the coincidence of calendars. We choose a title, and then each go our own way, working independently with our particular medium, responding to the theme literally, metaphorically, or ignoring it completely. Typically with no prior collaboration, we arrive at the Gallery on the date of installation and the magic begins. Month after month, a conversation becomes a melody in harmony as three visual ‘voices’ blend and an integrated exhibit is woven from disparate works that vary in material, size, and subject matter.

In TRILOGY, the voices of three artists tell a story of creativity across three mediums.

In creating my sewn textiles, I use three key components: cloth, thread, and needle.

My textiles always find their start in the cloth.

Alice’s palette

Starting with white cloth experiment freely with dye, pigments, and printing techniques to created cloth which is complex in texture and rich in visual interest.

Over the past several years, I have set aside lengths of cloth I found to be too interesting to cut up and use in assemblage work. This Spring I found I was drawn to these cloths. Monochromatic, they are notable for their subtle shadings and tones.

Working with whole lengths of dyed cloth, I’ve layered stitching with multi-hued threads to articulate visual motifs, and highlight the nuanced shading and tonality in the cloth. Cotton and silk threads of varying weights add texture, and depth to the work. Hand and machine embroidery, further enhance texture and add tactile and visual interest. The hand work is particularly satisfying. It proceeds slowly, a meditation of the rhythymic, repeated movement. Each line of stitching, each short length of thread has defines and pointed the way to what follows. The first series of three works feature a common motif of stitched lines of dancing tree-like figures, a frequent visual element in my work.

 

The second series, again of three, are also composed entirely of stitching. Working with whole lengths of dyed cloth, I’ve layered stitching with multi-hued threads to articulate visual motifs, and highlight the nuanced shading and tonality in the cloth. Cotton and silk threads of varying weights add texture, and depth to the work. Hand and machine embroidery, further enhance texture and add tactile and visual interest. The hand work is particularly satisfying. It proceeds slowly, a meditation of the rhythmic, repeated movement. Each line of stitching, each short length of thread has defines and pointed the way to what follows. Floral motifs dance across the panels of tapestry, inspired by my study of Italian and Indian tapestry

.

The third series is an effort to compose using color as a primary compositional element.

They are bright and multi-colored. Spontaneity ruled their composition and underlies their playful, whimsical aspect. This proved a good balance to the meditative, labor intensity of the other works. I was having so much fun making them that I ended up with a whole slew of these pieces. All in all the work for TRILOGY has allowed an evolution to new ways of working which always invigorates and energizes my creative ‘engine.’ The accompanying photos give a hint to the work in progress and a look at my ‘palette’, in my case, a table full of colorful dyed cloth, the true inspiration for all of my work.

 

Not quite there

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

ColorFull

Autumn in the Marsh

Lolette Guthrie

As a landscape painter I paint primarily from memory. I begin each new piece by thinking about what it was like to be in a particular place at a particular time: what the sky that day was like, what the temperature was, what the weather was. Always, I  strive to discover the essence of the subject rather than the reality, I want to capture the ephermeral nature of light and a mood that is timeless.

I paint in oils,beginning each piece with a general idea of what I am interested in exploring. I am, however, never certain about where the piece will take me. At some point each painting takes over and dictates what I need to do.

Autumn in the March

Resonant color is the core of my process. I juxtapose passages of saturated color with more muted tones and through the application of many layers of pigment and glazes try to create subtle color and value shifts that provide a degree of luminosity.

For ColorFull I concentrated on the myriad color found in nature. In most pieces I again concentrated on painting an interesting sky that almost would give the viewer a sense of place, time of day, temperature, and weather. In a few I explored the idea of depicting a memory trough pure abstraction.

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

ColorFull

Chris Graebner

St John’s Cathedral

After finishing college I spent 14 years running research labs, first in neuroscience and then in cardiology. It was a career that I loved, but when my son was born I returned to my first love, art. Art allowed me to work at home with more family-friendly hours. However, I think that much of my approach to painting has been influenced by my years in the lab. I love detail, and I love to find new ways to approach an old problem. When I see things I want to paint I’m constantly thinking about how I might do it. What technical problems are presented by that scene or that plant, and how should I handle those problems? What is the best medium – oil, cold wax, acrylic, ink, metalpoint, etc., then what is the best surface for it: canvas, linen, panel, paper, clayboard, scratchboard… Each image is a puzzle to be solved and assembled.

Colorful Portugal

Some artists paint from their memories or from their imaginations. I paint because I see something that moves me, something ephemeral, and I want to capture it and make it last. The places I paint are real places, the plants are real plants. Each is an individual experience. The process of painting internalizes that individual experience and makes it forever mine. And I’m at my happiest when the finished painting does the same thing for the viewer.

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

ColorFull

Pringle Teetor

I dearly miss those hot and sultry summers with five minute rainstorms in the afternoon that turn the streets into steaming ribbons of asphalt and bring rainbows all over the city. I especially love the bright colors of pastel madras clothing that, to me, are summers in New Orleans, where I was born. When I started working on cane pieces this winter, these memories were my biggest inspirations in my work. Patterns of lines in different colors are most easily produced by a complicated ancient Italian technique called cane work.

Cane refers to rods of glass with color that can be simple, containing a single color on the inside (core cane) or complex with strands of one or several colors in pattern. Veil cane is where you have a color on the outside over a clear core, or at times a core of another color. Pulling cane takes a lot of time, especially if you want different types of cane in many different colors.

My partner, Dana, and I spent a good bit of time this year pulling a lot of cane in many different colors. We would take a large a “gather” of colored or clear glass, heat it and shape it a number of times. For veil cane, we first make a “cup” of color, then stuffing it with a mass of clear glass. With a metal rod at each end, we would stretch the glass to a length of 30 to 50 feet. Once it is cooled, it is broken into pieces anywhere from 5 to 8 inches long. These pieces are carefully laid out on a kiln shelf and heated in the reheating furnace until fused, then rolled up on the end of a pipe. Finally we begin to blow glass! It is a long process but the outcome is amazing. With many colors and types of cane, the possibilities are endless, which you an see in the show Colorful!

 

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

ColorFull

Chris Graebner‘s paintings are often based on images gathered while traveling. The paintings in ColorFull are drawn from trips, foreign and domestic, taken over the last ten years. Says Graebner, “In the past few months I’ve spent hours going through my photo files choosing images that speak me – images that carry me back to a specific place and time. Once I’ve selected the images, I must choose the size, surface and medium best suited for each.” Graebner generally works on 4-6 paintings simultaneously so that the layers of each painting have time to dry while working on others. “Due to the back to back transitions of my son’s wedding, my husband’s retirement and our move to Elon last fall, I was out of the studio from August through January. Now, as we settle into our new home, I am again beginning to feel the grounding that being in the studio provides in my life. I hope that tranquility is manifest to the viewer in these new paintings.”

The majority of Pringle Teetor‘s pieces for this show are cane work, a centuries old Venetian technique of putting stripes of color and patterns into blown glass. “I’ve always had a broad color palette and here I am able to explore endless combinations of color patterns in clean lines.” The cane used in these pieces have either a colored core with clear on the outside, or veil cane, which has color on the outside with a clear core. Teetor made her veil cane with a variety of transparent or translucent colors, noting that as you look through the piece, the density of the color changes, causing interesting variations of color. Some pieces mix both types of cane, while others used strictly one or the other. In addition, several use varying size lines of contrasting colors to resemble plaids.

Lolette Guthrie is primarily a landscape painter. “Since I mostly paint from memory, my paintings are depictions of my recollections of the colors and the quality of light I experienced at a particular place and at a particular moment in time. For ColorFull, I thought about marveling at sunsets at the coast, remembering a pink and soft orange sky over Lake Jordan, the explosion of color when the sun shines through a stormy sky, the beauty of a broom straw field on a cloudy day.”

 

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ

COMMON GROUND

Swaying in the Summer Sun, a Leafless Tree

 

Michele Yellin

In life, one of the things that interests me most is finding a space where I can have a meeting of the minds and hearts with others. Sometimes I think that it is not unusual to feel isolated and alienated. With a little effort, we can connect with others and share what we have in common – our dreams, our hopes, our values and lives.

The same is true for my artwork. I create work as an expression of my own inner and outer life. Once I put it out in the world, I am interested in other people connecting with, and finding that what I paint, is part of their lives as well.

My paintings evolve organically. I start by laying down texture and color to create a loose abstract field. The textures and colors suggest shapes and spaces, much like clouds creating shapes in the sky. Everything and anything is on that canvas, waiting to be found. I draw what I see, and begin painting. Some things stay, others are painted over, developing paintings that have many layers. Through this process, the painting begins to tell a story. It is how I discover and reveal my inner life.

 

To receive Hillsborough Gallery of Arts Newsletter please complete the form below with your name and email address.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Submit

Δ