We started the evening off at the old Town Hall building. Easthampton City Arts celebrated the opening of their new office and feature an exhibit of paintings by Marlene Rye. Rye paints large colorful abstract landscapes. The quiet complexity in her work is mesmerizing.
Across the hall at the Elusie Gallery are photographs by Mark Stein, “Crops & Dunes.” Endless patterns in vast-looking farm fields, he shows us the beauty in misty-morning fields of cabbages, and endless sandy Cape Cod dune-scapes.
Singer-songwriter Brandee Simone played acoustic guitar. We’ve seen her perform at a previous Art Walk – she’s a very talented and sweetly-charming young woman, with an exceptionally pretty voice.
Art note: the lovely old Town Hall is home to Easthampton City Arts, the Easthampton Cultural Council, Eastmont Framing & Elusie Gallery, and the Flywheel (still in the process of renovating their space). The building is being re-used as a space for arts-related tenants. It sounds like interesting things will soon be happening there according to a recent story in BusinessWest magazine.
Next stop, Eastworks, to see the artists in the Marketplace:
Eric Mauro’s work first caught our eyes: slightly fantastical landscapes in earthy tones, and still-lifes of household objects reminiscent of 19th-century American trompe l’oeil paintings.
Cara Taylor’s handbags and purses crocheted with plastic shopping bags. She was crocheting a purse and it was interesting to see the process. Her work is available at Dandie in the Underworld in Northampton, and on her website, where we found that she will make you a free change purse if you send her 50 plastic bags.
Mark Stuart Gagnon had some cool booklets of abstract pen & ink mazes, and a rad splatter-painted skateboard deck.
Tom Alberico’s bold, hand-colored Woodblock prints, and two large, stunning, surreal, beautifully-detailed paintings. We tried to find some info about him online, but no luck. We wish all exhibiting artists would put their information online.
Poetry zines by artist and activist Martina Robinson. Intelligent and moving free-verse poetry.
Photography by Jennifer Gutterman Almeida. NYC city-scapes, post-Katrina New Orleans, that awesome old iron bridge at Mystic Seaport. We especially liked her birds-eye-view shots of Manhattan.
Last stop, d.ART Gallery. Oh if we had bags of money to spend, we’d spend so much of it here. A top-notch selection of art.
Another great Art Walk. There was alot more going on in the three hours that we didn’t have time to get to. Next one is December 9th.
