Pieces by Julia Blume are exhibited in “In the Garden.”
Chautauqua Visual Arts’ newest exhibition, opening today in the main gallery of the Strohl Art Center and curated by Associate Director of CVA Galleries Erika Diamond, serves as a reflection on art, nature and community.
Three of the exhibiting artists in “In the Garden” will celebrate the show’s opening with a gallery talk at 5 p.m. today in Strohl. The talk is part of the ongoing CVA Lecture Series, which has brought visiting artists, guest faculty members and industry leaders to the Institution to talk about their careers.
Regan Rosburg’s “Continuum.”
Margaret Jacobs, Brian Fleetwood and Hillary Waters Fayle will lead the gallery talk. “In the Garden” also features work from Julia Blume, Kate Clements, Ryan Michael Flores and Regan Rosburg.
The talk will provide an overview of each of the three artists’ work and personal perspectives about their art, with an open-ended conversation based on the audience’s interests and questions.
“I think a lot of times the viewer, the audience, will pick up something that I’ve never thought about before. That’s really helpful to me as an artist, and also helps inform new paths sometimes, as well,” said Jacobs, whose work entails powder-coated jewelry and fabricated steel sculptures.
“I really enjoy hearing what the audience has to say, and if they have any questions or reactions to the work, and then really responding to that,” she added.
Jacobs said she plans to give an overview of her work and her path as an artist. She is most excited to talk about whatever sparks the interest of the audience, because she often finds that to be the most fruitful and insightful.
For Fleetwood, a jewelry artist, making art is ingrained in his very existence. His identity as a citizen of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma is integral in his interactions with art and making.
Brian Fleetwood’s “Large Pin-Tastic Floral Brooches.”
“I make (art) because I want to engage in the world around me,” he said. “Making, using tools, creating things — whether they’re physical or not — is a way of both understanding and shaping the world around us. When we give up that thing that is so fundamentally human — and it seems like so many people have done that or been forced to have to do that — because of circumstance or being told that it’s useless, (we’re losing) maybe the most fundamentally human thing there is. I think that it’s important.”
Textile artist Waters Fayle has always been interested in the physical process of making art.
“I was, from an early age, interested in this idea of making things with my hands and making your life more beautiful,” Waters Fayle said. “I always wanted to make things, but I didn’t really consider the way in which that was related to art until a much later stage.”
