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

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COMBINATIONS

Desert Tracks

 

Eric Saunders

For my own images this can mean combining complementary or opposing elements in a picture, or combining different digital techniques to manipulate a picture.

I have made photographic images utilizing both of these methods,and are part of the featured artist show “Combinations”.

Ancient Roots

I am exhibiting 13 images in this show, plus a few more in the rest of the gallery.

For example there will be images depicting trees and roots along a trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway against a foggy background, and floating leaves blurred into streaks with a time exposure on top of a rocky creek reflecting autumn color.

Floating Leaf Streaks

 

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It’s all about the Story

The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, an artist-owned and operated gallery in downtown Hillsborough, NC, presents the sixth 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 have included Michael Malone, Jill McCorkle, Lee Smith, Allan Gurganus, and John Bemis. This year the artists have selected a work by Hillsborough’s own, Nancy Peacock, as their source of inspiration. Each piece in the group show, It’s All About the Story, is inspired by Peacock’s memoir,  “A Broom of One’s Own.”

Nancy Peacock will read from her book on Sunday March 11th, 4-6pm at the gallery. The reading will be followed by a reception and book signing.

Nancy Peacock is the author of three novels, the first was chosen as by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year. In A Broom of One’s Own, the author describes her experiences as a housekeeper and her journey to becoming a writer. This series of stories is about the houses she cleaned,  the people who lived in them, and her thoughts about writing and life. The artists of the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts depict these stories in paintings, photography, metal, fiber, glass, ceramics, and wood. It is a show for all those who appreciate rich storytelling and local art.

Opening Reception

Friday, February 23

6-9

Reading by Nancy Peacock

Sunday, March 11

4-6

 

 

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Three Perspectives

Eric Saunders, Fine Art Photographer

Artist Statement

My subject matter is outdoor landscapes, natural and urban, in color or black and white. I sometimes explore other subjects (artifacts and architecture), and digital enhancement or manipulation of images.

There is no particular story line to my work. I am trying to communicate the beauty of abstract art, and the beauty or intrigue of transient moments in nature and life.

I am mostly self-taught as a photographer. This makes my progress slower than I would like at times, because I listen to all advice, regardless of its merit.

Previously I studied classical piano, and then worked as a corporate computer programmer. I find inspiration for my images in music of all styles and eras; my work experience in computers has enabled me to learn digital darkroom techniques more easily.

All work had been using 35mm film using a NIKON 6006 and NIKON lenses (with a tripod most of the time). In April, 2010 I purchased my first digital SLR, a NIKON D700 (which uses the same lenses as my old film SLR).

I print my images using an Epson 3880 printer, using paper and inks archival to at least 100 years.

 

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Three Perspectives

Lolette Guthrie writes, “I am primarily a landscape painter, however, my viewpoint is different from plien air painters in that I paint largely from memory striving to discover the essence of the subject rather than the reality.  I want to capture the ephemeral nature of light and a mood that is timeless. This has led to increasingly simplified/spare landscapes and at times abstractions derived from them. 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 glaze I try to create subtle color and value shifts that provide a degree of luminosity.

For this show, I concentrated on painting an interesting sky that almost alone would give the viewer a sense of space, light, time of day, temperature, and weather. In most pieces, the foreground is almost an afterthought.  In a few, I explored the idea of reality and abstraction through the use of trompe l’oeil painting. When one looks at the sky, one sees refracted light and reflected colors not the reality of colorless air and moisture. Is, therefore, a painting of a recognizable object, landscape or skyscape real?  Or is it more like an abstracted memory or dream of reality?”

Photographer Eric Saunders writes of his new work, “With my photographs I try to communicate the beauty and intrique of abstract art, and transient moments in nature and life. I look to outdoor landscapes, natural and urban, and capture them in color, or black and white.

I am mostly self-taught as a photographer. Previously I studied classical piano, and then worked as a corporate computer programmer. My goal as a photographer is to “see” abstract compositions and communicate them with precise technical control. I shoot in RAW, and edit using Adobe Bridge and Photoshop CS5. I print my images using an Epson 3880 printer.”

Glass artist Pringle Teetor is constantly mesmerized by the dance of color, light, and fluidity in glass. Teetor states, “My forms are mostly functional vessels, but this year I have created pieces with a more sculptural form in mind.  My new flattened vases capture multiple colors and are like abstract paintings in glass. I like to play with the chemistry of color to produce unique effects in each piece of blown glass. Then, I incorporate copper, silver and gold to create new reactions between the glass layers.  The results are not always predictable, but the outcomes are often exciting.”

Opening Reception

Friday

August 25

6-9

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Let the River Answer

Arianna Bara describes the inspiration for each of her new one-of-kind creations in sterling silver: “My pieces for this show are about questions. The ones we all have about why we are here and what we are here to do. Believing as I do that we are spiritual beings having a human experience and that nature is our partner and guide in that experience, the search for answers leads me to look to what is right beneath my feet, to what is right beside me as I walk in the woods or along the river. I believe the answers surround us and are there for us to discover.”

Wood turner, Michael Salemi writes, “Normally, rivers contain the flow of water within their banks. But when water is too powerful to be contained, the river answers by changing. My work for this show displays the same tension. Some pieces are controlled shapings of wood to classic and expected forms, but others reflect the power of the wood itself—the work becomes what the wood would have it be.”

Of his new work for the show, Eduardo Lapetina states, “My paintings are a way for me to enter the world, not an escape from it. A painting opens a door into a space in which a play may be staged– where conflict, climax, and resolution all come together. In the process of creation, a painting becomes a battlefield for my struggles about what is, what is not, what ought to be, what I like, what I love, what I hate, frustrations, disenchantment, embarrassments. My art exposes to the world my most private thoughts and feelings, forming a spatial connection between what lives within me and what is alive in everyone else. I want my spaces to be painted without intention, without conscious technique, without anything that might interfere with the connections I seek to create. I do not want to keep a tradition. I am not looking for beauty, but the viewer might find it in my art. My paintings are not about any particular theme or motif, they are attempts to convey the immaterial through materiality. My aim is to project energy, visual vibrations, light, voices, excitement, and enthusiasm, and to capture them in a physical form that you can take home with you.”

Opening Reception

Friday March 31st

6-9

 

 

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Branching Out

 

License Plate Holder

Eric Saunders

For me, “branching out” implies moving away from images of branches of trees towards images of other natural subjects and subjects that are at least partially man-made. It can also mean branching out into digital enhancement of images.

River View in Winter

When moving away from postcard images of nature, it is still necessary to keep a sense of balance and organization to the composition of the image, else the “pendulum” has swung too far the other way.

Rust and Peeling Paint

 

Winter SkyN0 8

 

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Branching Out

Eric Saunders, Chris Graebner, and Mike Salemi are “Branching Out” with their new work.

Eric Saunders is a photographer who uses many techniques to digitally enhance his photographs. For Saunders [branching out] “can mean branches growing on a tree, or it can mean exploring new directions in technique and content.” He explains, “In the past few years, I have made photographic images that are literally of branches on a tree, and images that pursue new directions from outdoor landscapes using various digital enhancements, and images that feature man-made subjects.”

Saunders will have 15-20 new images in the show.

Appropriate for Branching Out, wood is Mike Salemi’s medium. The newest member of The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, Salemi describes his love of wood and his process as a backdrop for the pieces he will present at the April show. Salemi says, “I have always liked working with wood. While a graduate student, I would escape to the campus woodcraft studio each day to find peace and a sense of satisfaction. After I retired, I decided to make a serious effort to develop as a wood turner. In my work, I attempt to strike a balance between classic design prescriptions and my belief that many blocks of wood have something to say. The former leads me to create pleasing proportions in my spindles and pleasing curves in my bowls. The latter leads me to look to the wood for suggestions of shape and texture. I am particularly attracted to blocks of wood that have started to decay. A partially decayed piece of wood can reward the turner with dramatic color and pattern but requires that the turner navigate voids. Handling the negative space in a funky block of wood is a challenge worth taking.”

Chris Graebner is a painter whose work is often inspired by nature. Graebner refects, “One of my earliest memories is watching in awe as my mother painted the oak tree in our front yard. Instead of a brown stick with a green blob on top, her tree had bark, branches, and individual leaves. I was so amazed; I wanted to do that too!”

Working primarily in oil, Graebner will introduce new paintings this April in Branching Out.

Opening Reception

April 29

6-9

 

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In the Mind’s Eye

 

Eric Saunders

Why do I make photographs? What do I see when I make photographs? What do I think I see when I make photographs? What do viewers of my photographs see? What do they think they see? What do I want them to see?

These are questions which imply that the “mind’s eye” means many different things depending on the context.

Each image I make is an attempt to create an abstract visual adventure for the viewer – an adventure like reading a story or listening to a piece of music.

In order to do this effectively I look past the literal (i.e. a cloud, a sky, a house, a barn, a rock, a ripple in a stream, a placard, a beach, a section of rusty metal fence) and see abstract orderly patterns of light, color, line, texture, and form. Depending on the angle of view and the cropping and editing of the image, these patterns will move the viewer into the image and hold the viewer’s attention for a period of time, and perhaps stimulate the viewer’s imagination in a meaningful way.

This is the eye in my mind.

 

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In the Mind’s Eye

Hillsborough Gallery Artists show us what they see in their “Mind’s Eye”

In its September Featured Artist Exhibit, “In The Mind’s Eye”, the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts showcases the work of fused glass artist Susan Hope, painter Jude Lobe and photographer Eric Saunders.

For fused glass artist, Susan Hope, her mind’s eye sees a wonderful comparison between listening to beautiful music and observing the beauty found in painting with glass. She writes, “In music, a single note does not make a symphony. For us to hear music, the composer must first arrange the notes one by one, placing and spacing and allowing them to interact with one another. So it is with the interaction of colors and their relationships to each other. This show, ‘In The Mind’s Eye’, is a review of past color work in glass as well as a venturing into a new realm of color mixing to produce glass ‘paintings’ that reflect in 3 dimensions the excitement of color in flux. Just as in musical harmony, color harmony brings joy and emotional response to the heart and sings a lovely song.”

In explaining the inspiration behind her work for “In The Mind’s Eye”, painter, Jude Lobe says, ” Recently I had an explosion of new sun-drenched images imprinted in my mind on a trip to the big sky country in and near Santa Fe, NM. In this show, a majority of the artworks represent a visual adventure in expressing the glory and exuberance of these images I now find in my mind’s eye.  Some are representational of the natural environment and some are more abstract, but both exude the emotion of the moment and reference our strong connections to the earth. ”

Photographer Eric Saunders ponders what the phrase in the mind’s eye really means. He writes, “In thinking about the title of our show, ‘In The Mind’s Eye’, I found myself asking many questions: “Why do I make photographs? What do I see when I make photographs? What do I think I see when I make photographs? What do viewers of my photographs see? What do they think they see? What do I want them to see? I realized these very questions imply that, depending on the context, the term “mind’s eye” can mean many different things.

He goes on, “For me, each image I make is an attempt to create an abstract visual adventure for the viewer – an adventure like reading a story or listening to a piece of music. In order to do this effectively I look past the literal (i.e. a cloud, a sky, a house, a barn, a rock, a ripple in a stream, a placard, a beach, a section of rusty metal fence) and see abstract orderly patterns of light, color, line, texture, and form. Depending on the angle of view and the cropping and editing of the image, these patterns will move the viewer into the image and hold the viewer’s attention for a period of time, and perhaps stimulate the viewer’s imagination in a meaningful way. This is the eye in my mind.”

Opening Reception

Sept 25

6-9

 

 

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Art All Around

Each year the members of the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts has a group show. We decide on a title at our end of year retreat and slip the show in before we begin our monthly Featured Artists shows.  This year Ali thought of the title Art All Around and it’s a lucky thing because we are doing some reconstruction where the work was supposed to hang so now it is literally Art All Around…the gallery. Each one is labeled and easy to find.

Please come join us for our opening reception  the last Friday in January.

 

Opening Reception

January 30

6-9

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Resolutions 2015

Here is a little preview of images that Jude took after the brand new show was installed on Monday. It looks great!

Please come visit us Friday and meet the artists of Hillsborough Gallery of Arts very first juried art competition!

Opening Reception

Jan. 9th

6-9

121 N. Churton ST