Since 2011, the Hunt Library ArtWall has showcased local professional and emerging artists living in the Northwest Connecticut community and throughout the Tri-state area, from Boston to New York City.

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302 Years of Making Art 22 Promo Graphic

“302 Years (and counting) of Making Art” is a creative journey through an eclectic assembly of works by six local artists who have been creating art for a combined total of 302 years. The six artists are also couples: Joey Sage Jablonski and Bernie Re of East Canaan, Diane and Joel Schapira of Lakeville, and Karen and Scott Culbreth of Millerton. The exhibition ranges from painted works to ceramics and will have a few surprises too. When asked about the exhibition title, Bernie Re said, “the answer to the question that so many artists get asked, “How long did it take you to do that?”, is not minutes, hours, days or weeks, it is 302 years!”

Beginning with an outdoor Labor Day Weekend reception, the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village will host an exhibition of artworks by Danielle Mailer and Ani Jenkins. Encompassing paintings and sculpture in aluminum and wood, both artist’s work explores women’s voices and experiences in society through their artistic expression, which are complementary in their movement and sinuous qualities.

Like the mortar in an elaborate mosaic, Danielle Mailer’s lines and curves, in both her paintings and sculptures in this exhibition, are an echo and celebration of her mother Adele’s Peruvian heritage. Her late father, Norman Mailer, always said, “paint what you know,” which Danielle does here in her elaborate imagery of animated psychedelic animal spirits. An arts instructor at Salisbury School, Danielle lives with her husband, musician Peter McEachern, in Goshen, and has public murals in Torrington, Boston, New York City, St. Petersburg, FL and other places. She has just completed her largest free-standing sculpture to date, an aluminum ten-foot dog and a five-foot cat permanently installed at Our Companions, an animal sanctuary in Ashford, CT.

Intrigued by the unique patterns, colors and inclusions found naturally in wood, sculptor Ani Jenkins creates worlds infused with deep mystical themes, a melding of reality and dreams. The Falls Village artist, not long ago relocated from the San Francisco area, has been exploring her medium since the 1990s and is finding new inspiration in the natural beauty of the Northeast, far from her native home in the west.

COMING IN OCT
AMUSE-BOUCHE: AN APPETITE FOR ART

ART IN THE STACKS

JOHN FREDERICK WALKER

Falls Village artist, John Frederick Walker began incorporating book forms into his art in the mid-1990s. These works derive from actual books, or book fragments, radically altered, and range from table-top sculptures to large wall reliefs. All feature open book spreads from which pages have been torn or cut, and turning what remains into graphic meditations on hidden, missing or destroyed information, memory and loss.

Walker’s art has been exhibited in solo and group shows nationally and is represented in a number of private and public collections, including Yale University Art Gallery, Brooklyn Museum Library, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. He is also the author of A Certain Curve of Horn, an account of his search for an endangered species of antelope in war-torn Angola, and a history of the ivory trade, Ivory’s Ghosts.

“Walker has altered old books and journals to tell new stories, recall old ones and give entirely different meanings to the originals. Because Walker has long been obsessed with multipanel work—diptych, triptych—the book gutter divides two panels on which to tell his new narratives or hint at hidden meanings… these pieces are worth a visit.”

—Leon Graham, The Lakeville Journal