Drawn Together

The art critics, Charles Giuliano, in the beret, 

and Keith Shaw, hands linked behind his back. 

Drawn Together opened at the Lichtenstein last night and was jammed. Despite the date - it was Friday the 13th - everything went well. (The shot above was taken at the end stage after many had left.)

I had a wonderful time. And I think a lot of other's did, too. Many stayed for a long time.

Unless otherwise noted all the photos in this post were taken by my 10-year-old granddaughter, Riley Nichols, the official photographer of all my shows.

This is Matilda, Gae's granddaughter,

with a fashionable friend.

And this is the photographer, flash ablaze.

Tonight, Tonight

It's finished. I've worked a long time on this painting, Runway (Number 7). The piece is 6' x 4', acrylic on canvas.

This is one of two from the Runway series that I hung in the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts yesterday for Drawn Together.

That's the name of the show featuring the seven members of our art group, which has been meeting for eight to 10 years.

The reception is tonight from 5 to 7. You're invited. The Lichtenstein is located at 28 Renne Avenue, Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

The other members of the group, all accomplished artists, are Linda Baker-Cimini, Betsy Dovydenas, Barbieo Barros Gizzi, Julie Love Edmonds, Paul Graubard and Susan Hartung.

Drawn Together runs through January 9. The gallery is open Wednesdays through Saturdays from noon to 5.

The other painting I'm showing is the woman with the horse with a flaming mane. You can see that one in my November 1 post.

Crashing through

Into the Crosscurrents, Christine Heller's 25th solo show, is a powerful return to abstract expressionism.

Before this new series, she had been working for about four years on paintings about the Iraq War, paintings that were often devastating and started leaning toward abstraction, a style she often used in the past.

The current paintings were done during "a year in which tumultuous shocks have thrown me into a new stage of life," Christine says. Those shocks included the death of her mother.

During this period she found her studio in Hudson was a sanctuary.

"I didn't feel afraid in the studio," she said. "I was trying to work from my feeling of freedom there, going where ever the paint took me. It felt like I was working up to a fever pitch and I just didn’t want to stop."

You can still see figurative traces in some of the new paintings. Look at the one above.

You can see the turmoil in her life during this period pouring out in the forceful images.

"I kept crashing through to new ground," she said.

This is Christine in one of two rooms filled with her paintings in the show that just ended at the John Davis Gallery on Warren Street in Hudson. Davis has a strong stable of artists and sculptors and shows them to advantage in his storefront gallery space that leads out to a sculpture court and then into a four-story mill building.

The painting below is one of Christine's smaller works in the show. She says that some of her next abstracts will be much larger.

A golden grunge

Underground in the subway stations and subways in New York there is a golden cast to the light. Not quite celestial. More like a golden grunge.

To see blowups of these shots, click on them. Photos by Grier Horner/Protected by copyright.