PRESS RELEASE: Melissa S Armstrong at Vermont Studio Center in Johnson

Science is Fiction:
New Work by Melissa S Armstrong

Gallery II, Vermont Studio Center
March 10 – April 8, 2011
Opening Reception: March 10, 7:30pm

Staff-artist Melissa S Armstrong will present her final solo show at the Vermont Studio Center, March 10 – April 8, 2011. The show will serve as a retrospective of her year-long staff-artist residency, showcasing a variety of works made almost entirely of sugar and candy. These works have been the focus of a year of intensive study and exploration into growth and decay through the medium of sugar. All objects in the show have been completed since she arrived in Vermont in February of 2010 to work as the Graphic Design and Communications Coordinator for the Studio Center.

Melissa S Armstrong was born at the foot of the Rockies and raised in the mountains of Appalachia, where the geologic grandeur and history of both locations led to an interest in the sciences, especially Earth Science and Biology. Upon completion of her BFA in Industrial Design, she refocused her energies on installation and sculpture, with a formative show at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design in 2007. She has continued to show in Boston and Providence, and most recently was invited to participate in a show in the DMZ in Korea. After the completion of her staff-artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center, she will travel to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where she has received a NEA grant for a 5-week residency to continue her work in rock candy and sugar growth.

Image: Dura Mater, 2010, sugar, lace-knit cotton, leather, 5'9

PRESS RELEASE: Annual Winter Group Exhibit at Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery in Shelburne

Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery in Shelburne will be showing their annual winter group exhibit Simple Gifts: A Show for All Seasons from December 3- January 29, 2011. The public is invited to attend a reception with the artists on Friday, December 3, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

The featured artist in the exhibit is Kate Hartley, a longtime Vermont resident currently residing in White River, NY. Hartley describes her fascination with her chosen medium of watercolor and her recurring imagery of pears : "For many years, I have returned again and again to creating watercolor paintings of pears, often with them ripening on sunny windowsills. I have used the pears' almost-figurative forms and variety of skin tones to allow me to represent the people and situations in my life through a still life format. My paintings can be enjoyed simply as light gliding over beautiful forms, or can be seen as my comments on human relationships. Painting in still life offers me a chance to be very close to my subject and thus to see the complexities of color, light and shadows - voluptuous objects illuminated by the slanting and colorful light of early morning or late afternoon - which always inspires me to capture a scene in watercolor. "

The other artists in the exhibit are: Mary Alcantara, Elizabeth Allen, Anne Austin, Annelein Beukenkamp, Matt Brown, Tom Dunne, Jeri Lynn Eisenberg, Steven P. Goodman, Holly Hauser, Kathleen Kolb, Alice Murdoch, Lynn Rupe, Gail Salzman, David Smith, Adelaide Murphy Tyrol, Laura Von Rosk, Barbara Wagner, Dick Weis, and Nancy Weis.

Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery is located at 86 Falls Road in Shelburne Village. Gallery hours are Tuesday -Friday 9:30-5:30 and Saturdays 10-5. The gallery is known for its eclectic mix of over 40 emerging and established artists working in various media. For more information call 985-3848, write: mail@fsgallery.com, or visit the website at www.fsgallery.com.

Images: Rainy Day Friends and Circle Dance, watercolors by Kate Hartley

PRESS RELEASE: “It’s Not What You Thought” in the Julian Scott Gallery of Johnson State College

Karen Rand Anderson’s MFA thesis exhibit

March 29 – April 17, 2010

“It’s Not What You Thought” in the Julian Scott Gallery of Johnson State College

“What is the nature of meaningful relationship?” This is how Karen Rand Anderson’s artist statement begins. Her work currently in the Julian Scott Memorial Gallery of Johnson State College from March 29 – April 17, 2010 exhibits carefully broken chairs, dangling rocks, dream-like imagery, and a crib-sized bed filled with moss and stacked stones.

Her installation of drawing and sculpture pulls our attention toward a surreal world where things are familiar yet disturbed – through them, we see the internal workings of metaphor and thought. In the realm of her draftsmanship (her drawings are based on her sculptures), Karen Rand Anderson underscores the importance of objects as metaphors.

“What does a chair represent? A bed? A boat? Chairs are safe places to rest. We sit in them to contemplate, or share conversation with others. Beds are for sleeping and

dreaming in, alone or with another. A bed offers a place for recovery and healing, as well as the ultimate place to share intimacy, sex, secrets and the safety of sleeping with another person. Boats are vessels in which to journey; journeying leads to discovery of the unknown. A relationship is a vessel in which we are journeying with another. Cairns—piles of stones—are used as waypoints on a journey, and as markers for burial sites.”

In the words of poet/psychologist/writer Daphne Rose Kingma (again from her artist statement), “A relationship is a configuration of connection. It is the container in which we mix ourselves with others, the container in which, together with them, we hold ourselves in a certain way.”

“Ultimately,” Karen says, “the underlying element [of a meaningful relationship] is trust. This extends to objects as well: when we sit down, we trust the chair. When we lie down, we trust the bed. When we are in relationship with another person, we trust each other. For a relationship between two people to develop and flourish, trust is paramount.”

“Thematically, this body of work is an exploration of relationship: between self and another, self and self, and self and the relationship; the relationship as object. Instability and danger are visually present; text as markmaking inks in emotion and question. Symbols, metaphor and conceptual nuance reference tension, emotional paradox and irony. It is up to you, the viewer, to create your own story around this work, discovering that perhaps “it’s not what you thought.”

website: www.karenrandanderson.com