A showcase of arts department news

Clay Artist Shapes Newest Grubbs Gallery Exhibit

By Kristina Tedeschi
Photo courtesy of www.robbieheidinger.com
Photo courtesy of www.robbieheidinger.com

After exhibiting her work in galleries across the country for two decades, nationally recognized artist Robbie Heidinger will bring her latest pieces to Williston’s Grubbs Gallery beginning April 2.

Ms. Heidinger hand-forms clay into practical yet beautiful designs that evoke elements of the natural world.”Watch a plant grow, and you see its intention is perfect,” Ms. Heidinger writes in her artist’s statement. “It uses just the right shape, amount of color, and texture to fulfill its pliant, living design. I try to emulate this ‘biosophy’ in clay—without doing realistic imitations of plants.”

Gently curving lines, hues inspired by earth and sky, and an aesthetic rooted in the outdoors are all hallmarks of Ms. Heidinger’s ceramics. Each of the pieces—the bowls, plates, cups and baskets she creates—beg to be touched.

“It satisfies the urge to feel something attractively ‘natural,’ and more seductively, rewards the user by connecting them with a very potent and tightly focused abstraction of the tissues and structures of organic life,” Ms. Heidinger, of Westhampton, writes. “This—the psychosomatic connection occurring during the act of using the piece—unleashes the potencies of my expression.”

“New Work by Robbie Heidinger” will run from April 2 through May 11 at the Grubbs Gallery, with an opening Sunday, April 13 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. For more about the artist, visit robbieheidinger.com

2014 Photographers’ Lecture Series Begins in Black and White

A photographer who specializes in haunting black and white landscapes from trips abroad will help launch the 2014 season of the annual Photographer’s Lecture Series. Stephen Petegorsky, a Northampton-based photographer, will present his work during a public lecture on Tuesday, April 1, at 6:30 p.m. in the Dodge Room, Reed Campus Center.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

Born in New York City, Mr. Petegorsky has lived in the Northampton area for 40 years. He graduated from Amherst College in 1975 as a Fine Arts major, and later received an M.F.A. in Photography from Rhode Island School of Design.

His creative work has been exhibited internationally, and is in collections throughout this country as well as in Europe.  He has taught at Amherst College, Smith College, Hampshire College, and the University of Connecticut, and works as a freelance photographer specializing in photography of artworks.

Mr. Petegorsky has made black and white landscape images for most of his photographic career, and has also made pieces that involve transferring Polaroid emulsions onto boards covered with gold leaf.  Since 1998, he has worked as a volunteer with a group that has aided people with disabilities in developing countries.  His photographs documenting their efforts in Nicaragua, Honduras, Ethiopia, Peru, Colombia, and Jordan became the basis for his most current body of work.

For information on the Photographers’ Lecture Series, contact Traci Wolfe by or at (413) 529-3311.

Group Exhibit of Fiber Art Blooms in Grubbs

Vivika DeNegre’s piece with inspiration photo by Rosemary DeLucco Alpert. Photo and caption dianewrightquilts.blogspot.com

A group exhibit featuring the work of a dozen fiber artists from Southern Connecticut is now on display at the Williston Northampton School’s Grubbs Gallery.

“Double Take: Photo & Fiber,” which includes both fiber artwork and the nature photographs that inspired them, opened March 6. A reception for the artists will be held in the gallery on March 23 from 2-4 p.m.

The collective work was created by Sisters in Cloth, a group who drew their name from a Progressive quilt with a batik motif that they created together. Sisters in Cloth started in Guilford in 2000 and the group’s collective work has appeared in such venues as Haskins Labs at Yale University, Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Garde Theater in New London, and Connecticut Hospice in Branford.

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Happy Chaos as Students Prep Winter Arts Walk

IMG_1443The Grubbs Gallery was bustling with dozens of arts students on Thursday. Some wielded hammers, others used levels to straighten photos, and one was using fishing line to hang a jellyfish from the ceiling.

The artists, some 30 students from Arts Intensive class, were bubbling with questions about their displays: Did someone have a mike for a live performance? Was a particularly large canvas staying upstairs? What was the best way to center a nail for a heavy chicken painting? Could you put a row of light bulbs up using a stapler?

IMG_1439Fine and Performing Arts Teacher Susanna White was the calm epicenter in the middle of it all. Check with Matt Spearing in Student Activities for the mike, she said. Yes, the canvas would stay upstairs. Use painters’ tape to center the nail and get a perfect hole. Don’t use a stapler; use a staple gun for the lights.

Including those in Grubbs, artwork from roughly 120 students is going up around the Reed Campus Center this week. The work will be on display on Monday, March 3 from 5:00-6:30 p.m. during the public Arts Walk show. Until then, a form of happy chaos is taking place around the building.

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Winter Pops Concert Debuts

WNS-WinterPops[2013-14]The Williston Band and Orchestra will perform the 1st Annual Winter Pops Concert this Sunday, February 23 at 4 p.m. in the Dodge Room, Reed Campus Center.

They will play some pieces ranging in style from folk and Celtic to soul and pop. The program includes arrangements from of China, England, Ireland, Korea, and the U.S. with music from Adele, Julie Gold, Nanci Griffith, Patti Labelle, John Legend, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and more.

The students have been working hard to put together an exciting program of music for all to enjoy and they look forward to presenting it this weekend!

Dreaming up a Fairy Tale

On Wednesday, we draw the curtain on Cinderella. Over the course of the Winter Trimester, director Annelise Nielsen has worked with 12 actors to bring to life this classic tale in a new way. Drawing from a variety of theatrical styles, our production features shadow puppetry, musical numbers, elements of British panto, and the magic flexibility of a dream. Cinderella

A simple playroom transforms into a small house, a castle, a forest, and back again as 11 girls are whisked away in their dreams into the fairy tale of Cinderella, by way of her fairy godmother. Walls come to life, chandeliers change color, and the very elements of the room find their way to being costumes. Magic is everywhere, powered by imagination and audience interaction.

Shows are Wednesday – Saturday, Feb. 19-22, at 3:30 p.m. in the Williston Theater. Tickets are free for Williston Northampton students, and $5.00 general admission. They can be purchased online or at the door. We can’t wait to share this story with you!

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Diane Englander to Exhibit at Grubbs Gallery

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“Red Slashes Through Green” by Englander

Between 2006 and 2007 Diane Englander went from working for local New York City nonprofit companies concerned with poverty and disenfranchisement to being a full time collage artist. Works by Ms. Englander will be exhibited at the Williston Northampton School’s Grubbs Gallery from January 30 to February 27.

“I was brought up going to galleries and museums,” said Ms. Englander. “My own expressive energy must have simmered internally for years, occasionally emerging in photography, in quilt making, in other tentative explorations, and certainly in providing opportunity and materials for my children to create.”

Since 2007, Ms. Englander has exhibited her work at more than 15 galleries, schools, and other venues in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Ohio. Ms. Englander’s work has been featured on the Painters’ Progress and Lisa Pressman Art blogs. She has won both the Allied Artists of America Award from the Butler Institute of American Art and the Artist’s Grant from the Vermont Studio Center.

Grubbs Gallery is located at 40 Park Street, Easthampton, in the Reed Campus Center and is open on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 8:30 to noon.

Concert Pianist Stephen Porter to Give Lecture and Recital in February

Stephen-Porter-BlogIstanbul, Paris, Lake Como, New York City, and Rio de Janeiro are just a few of the cities where award-winning concert pianist Stephen Porter has played. The New England Conservatory of Music graduate will give a lecture and recital at the Williston Northampton School on Tuesday, February 18 at 7:30 pm.

Mr. Porter’s program for the performance at Williston includes Beethoven’s “Six Bagatelles, Op. 126,” Chopin’s “Two Nocturnes, Op. 62,” as well as a number of works by the French composer Claude Debussy.

A student of the famed Paul Doguereau, Mr. Porter is considered an expert in the works of Debussy. As the artist-resident of the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2012, the 150th anniversary of Debussy’s birth, Mr. Porter was asked to play the composer’s complete Piano Preludes.

Currently, Mr. Porter’s performances are centered on the works of Beethoven and Debussy. Mr. Porter has played with numerous groups and artists including the St. Louis Symphony, mezzo-soprano Krista Rivera, and the Brahms Piano Quartet.

The performance at Williston will take place in the Dodge Room of the Reed Campus Center at 40 Park Street in Easthampton. The event is free and open to the public.

Photos by Len Seeve on exhibit through Jan. 28th

_MG_2094Photography by Len Seeve will be on exhibit in the Grubbs Gallery until Jan. 28th. Seeve photographs a wide array of subject matter. He says that although these subjects “are widely varied – buildings and bridges often emphasize a certain stark geometric structure; natural scenery can serve as a foundation for experimentation with color and focus. Whatever the subject, my works are images first, reproductions second.” Seeve travels throughout the world to capture the subtle reality of places and people through his photos. An artist’s reception will be held on Sunday, January 19th, from 2-4 pm.

 

Visual Arts Faculty Give Gallery Talks

photo3Update: Due to the weekend snowstorm, the Visual Arts Faculty Exhibit artists’ reception scheduled for Sunday was postponed until Wednesday, December 18, from 6-7:30 p.m.

On Wednesday, December 11, Williston’s Visual Arts Faculty gave artists’ talks in the Grubbs Gallery in conjunction with their exhibition.

Students, teachers, and guests were on hand to hear Ms. Chambers discuss her installation using corrugated cardboard and to hear about her working process and the role of improvisation in creating the work.

Ms. Verdickt shared the source of her inspirations and the symbolism inherent in the animals (mice and rabbits) in her work.

Ms. White described the relationship between her representational and her abstract work, and how she deals with changing conditions at the locations at which she paints.

photo1Ms. Goldstein described how she develops a vision for costumes based on specific play scripts, and how she crafts her own jewelry from hundreds of tiny beads.

Mr. Hing was able to connect his history at Williston and his career trajectory, and to describe how one informed the other. He also described his years as a commercial photographer in New York, and what led him back to Williston.

Ms. Hume discussed her vases in the context of her “Slow Studio” line, and how being a designer and a maker both are philosophically connected for her. Attendees asked some excellent questions and expressed general appreciation of our talented art teachers!