Berkshire Openings: Out and About
International Club, Kolok Gallery, Eclipse Mill
By: Charles Giuliano - Jun 24, 2007
A busy Saturday in the Berkshires started with our first meeting as members of the International Club at a home with a stunning view perched on the side of a cliff in Pownal, Vermont just up the road from Williamstown where the club originated. In order to qualify an individual or one member of a couple must have been born out of the USA. In our case membership came through my Hamburg born wife, Astrid. There was a lively mix of cultures and languages as well as diverse cuisine. Guests were asked to bring a typical dish as well as a label with ingredients.
Prior to the event Astrid e mailed relatives in Germany asking for a recipe for an appropriate summer salad. What came back were variations on potato salad but also one for green beans, mushrooms and shallots. I was dispatched to Big Y for the ingredients which also called for Dijon mustard. It was a success and disappeared rather quickly. In particular I enjoyed the Shepherd's Pie a generous, meaty dish brought by a couple with British roots. My BFA colleague, Michael Miller, was seen conversing fluently in French, one of his several languages. There is a separate French club and there had been a recent meeting so Michael was following up with some of the members. Astrid spoke German with several guests while I more or less stuck to English while getting acquainted with neighbors in Williamstown and Cheshire as well as a family quite near to us in Adams. We hope to follow up and get together with new acquaintances and share interests such as chatting with a professor of Romance Languages, Anthony Nicastro, who loves music from Flamenco through early Blues. In particular he is interested in their common African sources.
The occasion also included a studio visit with host John C. Leavey a figurative, narrative painter who is opening an exhibition "Premier Coup Landscapes" Saturday, June 30 from 3-4:30 p.m., at the Bennington Museum, 75 Main Street,in Vermont. The exhibition will be on view through August 11. The studio was spacious and flooded with North light which he explained to guests is not perfectly oriented because of the limitations of the floor plan of the house. But it is close to perfect and he discussed how he had worked with a firm to create the special skylight windows. The guests much enjoyed the insider view of the studio.
We were a bit early for the opening at Kolok Gallery as Kurt and his partner, Joe Conway, an attorney, were just setting up for "Pushing Light" with work by the photographers Garrison Beau Scott, Tricia Zigmund, and Lana Z Caplan. I had recently seen and admired a different body of work by Caplan at Gallery Naga in Boston. Here she is showing more conceptual, manipulated, black and white (toned) pieces. There is an edgy surreal quality to the pieces.
The color prints by Tricia Zigmund involves models acting out in some strange rituals. On one there is a blurry view of a young woman on a bare mattress spring seemingly bouncing about in what appears to be an empty or abandoned room. In another a person glows with a lampshade over his head,, seated on a couch with another unidentified person, while another print is a shadowy figure jumping about in a room. There is no ready explanation for the images but they are handsome in color and tone and evocative in their mysterious and layered content. This is very attractive and seductive work. The smaller works of Scott were less compelling and I did not give them the attention they deserved. Being more subdued they seemed upstaged by the more dramatic work of the other two artists.
Now in its second season Kolok Gallery is getting much deserved critical attention and respect. There is a lengthy question and answer interview with Kurt in the June issue of the Berkshire based magazine The Artful Mind. It is published by Harryet Candee with a mailing address at 120 Pixley Road, Great Barrington, Ma. O1230. They may be reached on line at www.tamartzine.com .
Jane Herman, a felter and weaver, and owner of a studio in the Eclipse Mill has organized a group show "All Wrapped Up" with work by thirty fellow members of the Northeast Feltmakers Guild for the Eclipse Gallery. I was curious just how one makes felt and she gave me the short answer that it entailed fibers, such as wool combined with heat, agitation and a bit of soap. That heat changes the surface of wool fibers and makes it likely to bond with other fibers. I am sure there is more to know. And, like most people I just assumed that it was thick, matted drab stuff. My exposure to felt in art came from the sculpture of the German artist, Joseph Beuys, and the American artist, Robert Morris. They used but did not make the material itself. Jane delighted in debunking me of misconceptions. She was wearing a felt outfit, there were others by different artists in the show, and she invited me to feel how soft and pliant it could be.
The range of work and application of the material includes hangings, fine arts, and objects to be worn from dresses and skirts to shawls and boots. The variety of what was displayed proved to be most impressive. A sculptural object, a sushi still life, was a hoot. This exhibition was both attractive, fun, perhaps a bit too crafty for my taste, but entertaining and educational. If you want to experience a new art medium this is a perfect introduction. To learn more about the medium and the organization dedicated to felting visit their website at www.northeastfeltmakers.org