Author Archives: Kandinsky
Alive and Dreaming Up Winter Nights
Poem and images from the Winter Nights Exhibit:
Winter Nights
A winter’s softer night abrades the human,
Alone to release of skin,
Once stripped away
Following the red,
The woods, dunes, ground
Fading into shadow disappears,
Only the sky and water left
Speaking in whispers to each other,
Out past that long blue line
We go unseen.
– Rachel Baird
Levitation is Happening Now
The artist’s arrival is imminent; tonight in fact. You will get a chance to learn from Graziella Weber-Grassi the art of levitation. With this new mixed media series she once again demonstrates powerful insight through the use of nostalgic vignette. By peering into the oddly private world of the familiar, we quite unexpectedly catch some of the furniture in mid-air. In the great room we are also featuring Graziella’s large-scale acrylic on canvas works. Juxtaposed flashes of childhood and fragmented iconic imagery create a recognizable storyboard that defines our precarious confluence with the past.
Come to the gallery and be lifted up.
Alive and Levitating Into the Heat of the Night
Rosenquist’s female doppelganger, Graziella-Weber Grassi, has transformed the gallery into a stunning retro-surrealistic wonderland for the duration of summer. Floating furniture surrounds; the actual furniture I believe is slightly jealous. Walking through the gallery gives one the feeling of lifting off and peeling away of life’s burdens – this is how it should be in summer: We move easy, slowing a little, take more time to enjoy company, mingle with a cool drink, gaze at shorelines or dive into lakes, creeks and flowing rivers, collectively drift into dream states…all can be seen and done at Zone Three (and in the cool air conditioning).
June After Blog
June Atmospheres – a live after party update – Arts Walk in full swing – The night was picture perfect, windows blown open wide – sound of the waterfall cascading in, Atmospheric to be sure… In addition to the featured artist’s work – Atmospheres 1 and 2, displayed in the main gallery (open during regular business hours through this month) and Cruising Blue at 38,000 feet elevation – exhibited in the platform gallery, A new gallery room was added – the East Room, featuring MP Landis’ work.. A warm thank you to all who attended – we are already busy at work prepping for July’s blow out show – Levitation – 30 new pieces from Graziella Weber-Grassi (as well as some of her large works coming to nest at the gallery for the season)….Z3
Alive, Alive
It is spring and the gallery is in full swing. This month’s show, Atmospheres by Rachel Baird, is a minimalistic new mixed media journey through the just visible ether of our physical realm. In Atmospheres 1, a heavy humid summer night is captured, showing subtle geometric waveforms moving through mid-air. The series of images in Atmospheres 2 captures people and objects seen through this circular lens of water and midnight. In Cruising Blue at 38,000 Feet Elevation, following the sunrise over to Ireland, slight changes in the inverted blue horizon create a hypnotic passage.
With her clear modernist talent for capturing in abstraction what is physically evident but always slightly hidden, Rachel peels away the obvious surface to take a look at the current that runs through all life. For the opening reception this Friday, June 14th – 5-7 p.m. (during the Middlebury Arts Walk), the gallery will be showing the companion film to Atmospheres, – Nightlights will be playing continuously in the main gallery. In Nightlights – the same summer water orbs of pulsing colors beat in and out of a dark world – wrapped inside a soundtrack of ocean sounds from the filming location and otherworldly hearts of space beats, this film mesmerizes.
Wide Awake and Getting Ready to Dance Across the Creek
Just finished hanging the Train and Creek show in our Main Gallery….this work is soulful, moving – folks in the building just passing through were observed standing around studying and gazing into the depth of field of these extraordinary mixed media pieces. I heard several utterances of “wow.” Zone Three is truly elated to have M P Landis at the gallery. What an amazing addition his work is. You can feel the essence of this place, Middlebury, Vermont, Addison County, from where he pulled up meaning and laid it down on the page. Get ready for our opening reception, this coming Friday, May 10th from 5-7 p.m.
And to start the Arts Walk season off with a little flare – the skirl of the pipes will be heard at 5:00 p.m. – highland pipes in front of the Zone Three Gallery building (and heard throughout town as well, no doubt) to be followed by a Celtic Music Concert in the Gallery’s Great Room with Green Mountain Celts. I am putting my jig shoes on for this one.
Alive and Dreaming in the Month of Hearts
The month of hearts is here and so “My Pooling Heart” arrives in a timely fashion. In this series by Rachel Baird acrylic on canvas and acrylic on paper images dismantle the heart in stages to peer beneath the outer surface into snapshots of what affects the heart both physically and emotionally.….Sorrow over collective suffering, personal loss, broken romances and physical degeneration all lie beneath a beating heart. The heart is the ruler of our bodies, the arteries a superhighway conducted from the source. The heart is many things…perhaps an opening. This exhibit is featured in the main gallery through February 28th.
Also exhibiting this month—at the National Bank of Middlebury, “Sardinian Cupids” by Graziella Weber-Grassi. These clever and whimsical collages have winged cherubs popping out of cloud filled sardine cans….each features a unique cancelled stamp—all the better to fly…
Aftermath
The Opening Reception and Holiday Fete: Adding by hand, the people who came to the event, stared at the 4×6 foot “Archangel Michael on the Move,” listened to live Celtic harp music with harpist Bolton Price, saw all the manner of angels then went forth lighter (a considerable amount), the amount of chicken mole hand pies eaten (dozens), the number of Glam Raphael new mixed media works that flew out the door and how much glitter that entails (I cannot even fathom), the number of cupids you can squeeze into a sardine can (an undetermined many). The show continues through the end of this month and can be viewed in the main gallery from 8 a.m.–6 p.m. (Monday–Friday) and as always, in the great room and the rest of the gallery, by appointment. Here’s wishing everyone a beautiful and artful Christmas.
Our Holiday Show: All Manner of Angels
Our Holiday show is fast approaching and angels are multiplying around the place… every shape and size…Just finishing the hundred eyes on “Archangel Michael” a 5×6 foot semi-abstract rendering in oil on canvas of my favorite of all the angels. It has been an interesting process, begun in Rome recently with images, some abstract and ethereal taken while running around Roma in search of angels, creating prints on art papers, then back in Vermont studying the references to each angel, retracing their stories and meditating on their essence before creating my interpretations in paint.
Graziella Weber-Grassi has been busy in her studio as well creating all forms of inventive euro-angel prints and collages, angels holding the planet up, cupids in a sardine can. Come and be amazed, you might even hear a wing or two in motion. Opening Reception, December 14th 5-7 – with Celtic harpist Bolton Price and a holiday fete befitting the angels.