One of the problems with the traditional art gallery is that it can feel insular – everyone knowing each other making it feel hard to get your art into the gallery scene. But the 14+14 show that premiered at the Washington Street Gallery on Jan. 10 is specifically designed to break that trend since half of the artists on display are guests.
“I love having fresh art … that brings in new people,” Nora Venturelli, a landscape artist involved in the organizing of WSG’s shows, said.
Maybe it is just that the WSG is one of Ann Arbor’s better established art galleries in town, but A2s gallery going public seemed to think it was exactly what they wanted. Friday was a particularly cold, dark evening with the sort of super slippery snow that comes down like fine sand to make a particularly treacherous slipperiness. And yet the place was packed – an hour and a half after the warm yellow glow of the show opened, the WSG was boasting a crowd that lesser galleries would struggle to achieve in the middle of summer.
The chats that merge into a cacophony, typical of a good gallery opening, came as a surprise to Robert Goepp of Ypsilanti. He was here to support an artist fan and told Current: “I’m used to museums.”
Goepp also said that it was “the diversity of the pieces” that struck him most. “There are a lot of different pieces, from a lot of different people, and they’re really great.”
The show has no style or subject matter specific to it. The whole point is that 14 artists already affiliated with the gallery got to display pieces and to invite another artist to bring something as well – including both former gallery members and newcomers.
“I live across from Stinchfield Woods, which is owed by the University of Michigan, and there are all of these beautiful woods and trails and I love hiking through there. This piece is inspired by walking through the woods in fall, and seeing the beautiful light and the leaves turning,” Helen Gotlib, a Dexter Township-based fine artist who used to be part of the gallery said. “I like trying to bring out the crunchiness of the floors floor, feeling of the time of year.”
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“I’m a bird watcher. One of the things I love about them is their behavior. One of the things I love to do as a bird watcher is go ‘that’s a bird’ and it’s a stick; or you’re trying to identify a bird and [then] it’s just gone. It’s a fun challenge,” gallery member Valerie Mann explained while standing next to her hanging depiction of birds.
An artist who specializes in reusing material that would’ve otherwise ended up in the landfill, Mann used “innertube rubber, plexiglass cut offs from a friend who has a framing shop, and fabric pieces with a wire interior.” The materials are stored and stained in different ways. Mann explained that is hung in a way to manipulate, “light to cast the shadows. That’s one of the things I love about birdwatching. When the light hits them. You might be watching a black bird on a wire, but then the light hits it and its an indigo bunting… and it’s just breathtaking…”
But don’t feel bad if you missed Friday’s grand opening. It is open until February 1 it is free to drop in.
Member artists:
- Sara Adlerstein
- Cathryn Amidei
- Babara Brown
- Lynda Cole
- Karin Wagner Coron
- Connie Cronenwett
- Michelle A. Hegyi
- Sarah Innes
- Adrienne Kaplan
- Valerie Mann
- Ted Ramsay
- Elizabeth Schwartz
- Takeshi Takahara
- Nora Venturelli
Guest artists:
- Boisali Biswas
- Elizabth Barick Fall
- Karen Davies
- Craig Jaffe
- Denali Gere
- John Lilley
- Helen Gotlib
- A. Letts
- Denise Rohde
- Ryan Stiner
- Marcia Polenberg
- Janie Paul
- Dylan Strzynski
- Lee Marchalonis
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!