Current Show:
"Brush with Nature"
Featured Artist: Ron Sumner
Exhibit Runs: April 29th - May 26th, 2019
Artist Reception:
Saturday, May 18th, 2019: 2-6pm
Stop by to engage in gallery conversation with artists, Ron Sumner and Laura Roney.
Refreshments will be served.
The May Featured Artist, Ron Sumner, presents “Brush with Nature,” an exhibit of watercolors featuring wildlife. In a realistic manner, these paintings show the artist’s deep love for birds and animals. Whether painting the feathers of a California quail or the horns of a Hartebeest in the fields of Kenya, his renderings bring these creatures to life. “To do these subjects justice,” says Sumner, “I must not only capture the right colors and textures, but be anatomically correct.” Detailed studies of each subject and its relationship to its environment are important steps in the painting process.
Sumner generally uses Arches 140 lb. rough watercolor paper, which allows for wonderful transparent washes and has a forgiving surface. He does not use preliminary sketches but has in mind certain images of size, colors and technique, which can change as the painting progresses. For example, some paintings use a very detailed technique, such as controlled overlapping washes, while others are more painterly. “God, I just love painting,” Sumner enthused. Also included are California landscapes and a large oil painting of Yosemite.
Ron Sumner received his BFA at the California College of Arts and Crafts, after which he was a technical illustrator for some years. Today he is a full time painter. His work has received several prestigious awards, including Best of Show at the Society for Western Artists. His portrait of John F. Kennedy is in the permanent collection of the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.
Small Works Showcase: Laura Roney
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The Small Works Showcase on the stairway features “Stoplight: a Small Works Installation” by Laura Roney. Fruits - apples, tomatoes, pears - star in her 12” x 12” still-lifes in oil. Painterly renderings are intensified by complimentary color or stained wood backgrounds. So eye-catching, these paintings are delicious enough to eat.
The Small Works Showcase on the stairway features “Stoplight: a Small Works Installation” by Laura Roney. Fruits - apples, tomatoes, pears - star in her 12” x 12” still-lifes in oil. Painterly renderings are intensified by complimentary color or stained wood backgrounds. So eye-catching, these paintings are delicious enough to eat.
Upcoming Show:
"Seeking Common Language"
Featured Artist: Cynthia Sumner
Cynthia Sumner
Exhibit Runs: May 26 – June 30, 2019
Artist Reception: Saturday, June 15, 2019 from 4 – 8 pm
Stop by to engage in gallery conversation with artists, Cynthia Sumner and Beverly Bird and enjoy a special beverage sampling by YMateina, the finest Yerba Mate from Paraguay.
The June Featured Artist, Cynthia Sumner, an emerging local artist brings together her love of ceramics and painting in a new collection of work: “Seeking Common Language.” The exhibit features two mediums: a series of stacked sculptural forms in clay (“totems”) and oil paintings in cold wax medium.
Her paintings reference internal and external landscapes. “I am inspired by nature and mid-century modern ceramics,” said Sumner. In her painting process, textures play a big role as they go through layering, scraping, applying more paint. Cold wax medium blends beeswax, resin, pigments and solvents, which then evaporate to create a firm surface. Wax artworks date back to the ancient Egyptians. Once cured, these paintings can be handled like any other fine artwork.
“Whereas painting is a more recent endeavor, working in clay is like home to me. I’ve been shaping things out of earth since I could make mud pies,” noted Sumner. “Knives, squeegees, scrapers and my own fingers give me visceral feedback like working in clay,” she added. The stacked sculptural forms express her vision in three-dimensions: abstract shapes play off each other in these unique works.
A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 80’s, Sumner was an art educator in New Orleans and San Francisco; she previously exhibited as a conceptual/installation artist.
Her paintings reference internal and external landscapes. “I am inspired by nature and mid-century modern ceramics,” said Sumner. In her painting process, textures play a big role as they go through layering, scraping, applying more paint. Cold wax medium blends beeswax, resin, pigments and solvents, which then evaporate to create a firm surface. Wax artworks date back to the ancient Egyptians. Once cured, these paintings can be handled like any other fine artwork.
“Whereas painting is a more recent endeavor, working in clay is like home to me. I’ve been shaping things out of earth since I could make mud pies,” noted Sumner. “Knives, squeegees, scrapers and my own fingers give me visceral feedback like working in clay,” she added. The stacked sculptural forms express her vision in three-dimensions: abstract shapes play off each other in these unique works.
A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 80’s, Sumner was an art educator in New Orleans and San Francisco; she previously exhibited as a conceptual/installation artist.
Cynthia Sumner
Small Works Showcase: Beverly Bird
Beverly Bird
The Small Works Showcase on the stairway features “Sonoma Gems: a Small Works Installation” by Beverly Bird. Scenes from throughout Sonoma County featuring vineyards, ocean vistas, local sites, forests, iconic landscape views are depicted in colorful acrylic paints and textures. “Everyday the beauty of Sonoma brings such a thrill, I can’t help but pull out my paints,” says the artist.
Previous Show:
"African Adventures"
Featured Artist: Carolyn Wilson
Carolyn Wilson
Exhibit Runs: April 1st - April 28th, 2019
Artist Reception:
Saturday, April 13th, 2019: 5-8pm
Join Carolyn Wilson and Cynthia Jackson-Hein to celebrate art and enjoy refreshments.
Is an African safari on your bucket list? Artist Carolyn Wilson has recently crossed it off hers, and it was truly an experience of a lifetime. Wilson's new series of mixed media collage paintings share her feelings of privilege and awe at being able to observe these magnificent animals up close and personal. Her paintings capture some of her favorite wild animal encounters, especially her favorites, the elephants.
In Carolyn's collages you will find imaginative use of color and a tactile, textured surface that you may want to touch. Her paintings are also infused with personal history as the beginning layers of collage are embedded with ephemera, such as maps, words in foreign languages and tickets collected on her travels. So that adds to the story of the piece. Each painting starts very spontaneously with elements of randomness and eventually gets reigned in and refined as it evolves.
"Each painting takes on a life of its own, and the end result is a surprise even to me. Creating is nothing short of a magical and totally absorbing process." says Carolyn Wilson.
Carolyn Wilson was born and raised in England, and emigrated to the USA when she was in her mid-twenties. She has been an artist for 20+ years and lives in Sebastopol. Carolyn has participated in Sonoma County Art Trails open studio tour since 2014. Her paintings have been published in 2 books: The Encyclopedia of Watercolour Techniques by Hazel Harrison (2018) and The New Encyclopedia of Watercolor Techniques by Hazel Harrison(2010)
In Carolyn's collages you will find imaginative use of color and a tactile, textured surface that you may want to touch. Her paintings are also infused with personal history as the beginning layers of collage are embedded with ephemera, such as maps, words in foreign languages and tickets collected on her travels. So that adds to the story of the piece. Each painting starts very spontaneously with elements of randomness and eventually gets reigned in and refined as it evolves.
"Each painting takes on a life of its own, and the end result is a surprise even to me. Creating is nothing short of a magical and totally absorbing process." says Carolyn Wilson.
Carolyn Wilson was born and raised in England, and emigrated to the USA when she was in her mid-twenties. She has been an artist for 20+ years and lives in Sebastopol. Carolyn has participated in Sonoma County Art Trails open studio tour since 2014. Her paintings have been published in 2 books: The Encyclopedia of Watercolour Techniques by Hazel Harrison (2018) and The New Encyclopedia of Watercolor Techniques by Hazel Harrison(2010)
Carolyn Wilson
Artist Reception:
Saturday, April 13th, 2019: 5-8pm
Join Carolyn Wilson and Cynthia Jackson-Hein to celebrate art and enjoy refreshments.
Cynthia Jackson-Hein
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Cynthia Jackson-Hein
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Small Works Showcase: Cynthia Jackson-Hein
The Small Works Showcase exhibit on the stairway features works by Cynthia Jackson-Hein. Known as the painter of “life and land,” Jackson-Hein’s oil paintings give the viewer a real feeling of the place, often a barn or beautiful country setting. Ordinary scenes truly come to life in her paintings.
Cynthia Jackson-Hein
Past Shows:
"Dream Vessels and A Murder of Crows" March 2019
Featured Artist: Marsha Connell
"Thinking About Hokusai"
Marsha Connell
Exhibit runs: February 25 – March 24, 2019
Artist Reception:
Sunday, March 10, 2019: 2 -5 pm
Poetry reading with Marsha Connell and Reba Connell, 2:30-3 pm
Refreshments will be served.
The March Featured Artist, Marsha Connell, presents works that articulate an artistic evolution initiated in collage and leading to the “Murder of Crows” still-life oil paintings. Connell had long been a painter and sculptor when her daughter, Reba, invited her to make a collage for shared communication while she was having her junior year abroad in Israel, a year that coincided with the first Gulf War. The collages became an unexpected healing process, fueled deeper by a dream of war preparations that suggested she bear witness. The collage “letters without words” to her daughter grew into a series of 150 “Dream Vessels” that speak with a visual vocabulary, like “Vanitas” paintings, symbolically merging awareness of death and the passage of time with the beauty of life.
When words finally came, they emerged from the “dreaming in the day” dance practice of Authentic Movement. The resulting poems were often written in the presence of the collages and arose from a similar place of finding connections among discovered fragments. They accompany the Dream Vessels, but do not describe or explain them.
The arranging and rearranging of found images in collage-making, laid the groundwork for assembling and staging objects in the “Crow” series. “Spirit birds” and wings play a supporting role in the collages; birds star in the still-life series. “Through this work, I found a way to bring hope together with darkness. Assembling these found images was like taking the broken pieces of the world and putting them back together.”
Both the collages and the crow paintings entice the viewer to look closer and follow a path of discovery. The paintings are also homages to other painters, such as “Thinking of Emily Carr.” And there is humor, Connell confided, “The longer these crows were in my studio, the more trouble they got into!” evidenced by their activities and positions in the paintings.
When words finally came, they emerged from the “dreaming in the day” dance practice of Authentic Movement. The resulting poems were often written in the presence of the collages and arose from a similar place of finding connections among discovered fragments. They accompany the Dream Vessels, but do not describe or explain them.
The arranging and rearranging of found images in collage-making, laid the groundwork for assembling and staging objects in the “Crow” series. “Spirit birds” and wings play a supporting role in the collages; birds star in the still-life series. “Through this work, I found a way to bring hope together with darkness. Assembling these found images was like taking the broken pieces of the world and putting them back together.”
Both the collages and the crow paintings entice the viewer to look closer and follow a path of discovery. The paintings are also homages to other painters, such as “Thinking of Emily Carr.” And there is humor, Connell confided, “The longer these crows were in my studio, the more trouble they got into!” evidenced by their activities and positions in the paintings.
"Dream Vessels #125: Metronome," Collage. Marsha Connell
Small Works Showcase: Andrea Cleall
Andrea Cleall
The Small Works Showcase exhibit on the stairway features works by Andrea Cleall. These works are an eclectic mix from landscape and wildlife to musicians and still-life.
Andrea Cleall
"Art From The Heart" February 2019
Artist reception: Sunday, February 17th, 2-5pm
current exhibit runs to through February 24th
Linda Barretta
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Carolyn Wilson
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Donna Schaffer
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The February Window features heartfelt artworks by Linda Barretta, Donna Schaffer, Carolyn Wilson, Ron Sumner and Cynthia Jackson-Hein. And, for your sweetheart, fall in love with a special piece of jewelry or a locally handcrafted gift.
Ron Sumner
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Cynthia Jackson-Hein
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Small Works Showcase: All 16 Gallery Artists
Carolyn Wilson
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Phyllis Rapp
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Cynthia Jackson-Hein
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The Small Works Showcase exhibit on the stairway displays artwork by all 16 gallery artists. As individual as the artists themselves, this exhibit features small paintings expressing connections to the people, places and things that these artists love most in life. Some artists display their passion for painting wildlife; others their bliss in observing nature's details or favorite places discovered while outdoors capturing the beautiful landscape of Sonoma County, and beyond. “This exhibit really shows the common thread of their passion for making art”, noted Carolyn Wilson, Gallery manager, adding, “all art comes from the heart.”
Susan Greer
Linda Barretta
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Cynthia Sumner
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