HARDWICK – An ongoing spring exhibition of art by over two dozen contributors at the Hardwick Inn has been extended into June. The show illustrates the remarkable talent and diversity of creative artists in this area, Pieces range from imaginative collages to photographs, landscape paintings, fabric constructions, folky wooden sculptures, abstract works, prints, watercolors, drawings and portraits.
On the ground floor by the west staircase are Winter Collages by the first-, second- and third-grade students at Hardwick Elementary School. Snowy landscapes tell the stories of the kids’ experiences of winter, bright red cardinals and depict the aurora borealis in a night sky and cardboard masks from 3-D sculptures, all colorful, well composed and delightful.
Ceilidh Kane has eight watercolors of landscapes as seen from a plane, showing fields, roads and waterways in what become almost abstract patterns. The muted colors are harmonious and the compositions carefully balanced, showing the human impact on the earth.
Adam Molleur presents eight paintings on cardboard and 11 on canvas in a series called “Science Fiction Landscapes,” some more abstract than others, with free use of color and a sense of surging energy.
Stephanie Garguilo’s acrylic, Foxy Locks, combines a fox with a woman’s face with swirling hair in dynamic curves, all fitting nicely together.
In the stairwell and second floor are eight sophisticated works by Alexandra Bottinelli. As she describes them, “The works presented here, collage-paintings with oil, are mysterious and layered, the process is slow, involving the building of images, space, color, removal and rebuilding.”
Ross Connelly’s nine photographs capture the endless beauty of the natural world, from a pelican in flight to a winter moon, a spectacular sunset and trees covered with new snow, as well as the Hardwick railway station and scenes of Ireland where he has ancestral roots, all sensitively structured fleeting moments.
Ken Leslie has very original conceptions in his fine paintings, starting with a large circular acrylic of a goose flying over a city, surrounded by stars to guide her, very poetic. “Home” is another round piece, centered on an attractive house with a porch, amid grassy lawns and a curving road, with smoke coming out of the chimney; quite an idyllic vision.
Jo-Ann Dimick’s six paintings celebrate local landscapes such as the Brown farm in Hardwick, antique cars in front of the Hardwick Inn, a horse and sleigh at a covered bridge in Stowe, the round barn at the Shelburne Museum and tall blooming lupine in the foreground with hills in the distance, all well constructed.
Philip Robertson’s excellent prints show a nice combination of realism and abstraction, making skillful use of the medium, some repeating the subject with variations in color. Two scenes of Hardwick, the “Little River” and “Meyer’s Field” are local.
Charles Emery clearly has fun making his paintings of birds and humorous sculptures of fish and caterpillars. They are colorful and have a certain quality of folk art whimsical spontaneity.
Nancy Schade has a whole room full of two dozen works on the third floor, with vibrant landscapes, intriguing charcoal drawings of active human figures and two finely sculpted bronzes. Some of the images have symbolic power.
Mary E. Young contributes some dozen paintings in varying sizes, with different degrees of recognizable objects or more abstraction.
Susan Calza has a black box with glass entitled “Walk It Home,” holding a cut out figure and face with a curious element of strangeness.
Howard McKenzie’s black and white prints are highly professional, large in scale and with interesting details such as a gumball machine and skulls amid figures and disembodied faces. Angela V. Grace submitted two paintings and a print: a carefully crafted “Asparagus and Friends,” an abstract landscape “Over the Moon and Life,” a mono print of a bird on the stem of a planet.
Lori Leff’s prints and watercolors of people are quite striking, with varied settings, in rooms and even a bath tub, all of which suggest aspects of their individual personalities.
Valeria Angelo’s pieces utilize the mediums of watercolor, oil and pencil, from “Happiness on the Run” with a boy and girl playing with pigs to a sympathetic and very exact profile of a young girl, and a study of her husband Rip Keller playing the piano.
Marie LaPre Grabon’s portraits are particularly well done, some having collage elements, beautiful in color balances, a fine scene of proportion and strong compositions, with background context that further conveys each person’s uniqueness.
Michele Sulham’s textile pieces have a woman’s face, landscapes with prominent flowers, a flooding stream and a wise old woman, all carefully constructed of yarn.
Kathryn Lovinsky’s 16 works explore many different mediums and subject matter, from animals to birds, flowers, landscapes and people.
Some artists wished to remain anonymous. In the eastern stairway between the second and third floors are nine abstract paintings, which have a feeling of movement, perhaps of water, growing plants, or of the sky. On the third floor a series of geometric designs are carefully thought out.
As the exhibition continues, some pieces have been removed and replaced by others.
We should be grateful to Olive Ylin, who runs the Third Floor Gallery in the Hardwick Inn, for conceiving and organizing this wonderful exhibition of local artists.
David K. Rodgers
David K. Rodgers is a writer, mason and card carrying dilettante, who dabbles and babbles in art. He has lived in East Craftsbury for the past 40 years.
