2017 HS Art Exhibition

The Taber Art Gallery is pleased to present the 

Pioneer Valley 2017 High School Art Exhibition 

Nov. 20 through Dec. 14. 

Works include drawing, painting, graphic design, photography, ceramics, and sculpture.

Awards will be announced at the RECEPTION on Thursday, November 30th. 

This years work will be juried by John Calhoun http://www.johncalhounart.com

Open to the public, The Taber Art Gallery is conveniently located through the 

Holyoke Community College Library in the Donahue Building.  

Gallery Hours are Mon. through Thurs. 10:00am - 6:00pm during regular school sessions

MASKED

A GROUP EXHIBITION

September 21 - October 31

Gallery talk and reception - Wed. Oct. 4th

11am - 1pm - talk begins at noon

Halloween MASKED Closing Party 

Tuesday Oct. 31st, 5:30 - 7:30 

Contributing Artists and Collectors:

Anonymous

There are two separate anonymous sources for work in this show. Both are artists and collectors. One is from Holyoke, MA and the other is from Northampton, MA. 

Ted Eiseman

With his studio based in Haydenville, MA, Eiseman draws, paints and sculpts in a variety of moods & styles, nearly always representational and/or illustrative. He is largely self-taught, defying routine and convention. The papier-mâché masks included in this show were created specifically for Halloween and environmental protests.

Lyn Horan

Horan likes to experiment with a variety of materials, often semi-transparent, overlapping them to emphasize that dichotomy of clarity vs. ambiguity, layering them literally and/or figuratively to encourage the viewer to consider changing perspective. Horan lives and works in Holyoke, MA.

Michael Karmody 

Originally from Scotland, Karmody is a founding partner of Holyoke’s Brick Coworkshop, where he makes his art. Working in concrete and other materials, he is interested in the gesture of information much in the same way that a typographer is interested in the way kerning contributes to the ability of a word to project itself. 

Juan Maldonado-Morales

A resident of Springfield, Maldonado-Morales collects the traditional carnival ponce masks and art works from his native Puerto Rico. 

Dean Nimmer

Nimmer has exhibited his art in over 200 solo and group exhibitions across the US and in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Dean’s artworks are in numerous public and private collections including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, DeCordova Art Museum, Smith College Art Museum and the Drawing Center, NYC. Nimmer teachers art here at HCC. His home and studio are based in Holyoke.

Kamil Peters

Peters is a contemporary metal artist working out of Holyoke, MA, with roots in Texas and Western Massachusetts.  His work embodies a wide range of intricate masks to large-scale commercial installations.  Over time he’s become very deliberate with his intentions to incorporate the spirit of the past with a distinct modern edge as an interpretation of the natural world; allowing his environment to play a key role in how his work is expressed. 

Alicia Renadette 

Based in Holyoke, Renadette is a multi-disciplinary artist whose (often) theatrical work explores and exploits both social and psychological contradictions. Her work has been exhibited nationally with shows at the Sculpture Center, NY, Southern Exposure, San Francisco , Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, VT and most recently a solo show at Occam Projects, Providence RI and an installation in the powder magazine at Fort Jay at the Governor’s Island Art Fair, NYC. 

Jan Stenson

Stenson has lived and worked in Northampton for 60 years. She was educated locally and employed as a paintings conservator.

Stacy Waldman

Waldman is a dealer and collector of vintage and found vernacular photography, specializing in 20th-century snapshots. Photos that she discovered have been included in numerous exhibitions and publications throughout the world. She can be found, selling and collecting at photography and ephemera shows throughout the country and abroad, as “House of Mirth Photos”, and at her gallery and shop, “Spot 22” in Easthampton, MA.

Image: New Snow on the Road Above Conway, watercolor on Arches Rough paper, 18x24, 2014

WELL SEEN

a retrospective on the art of 

Steven Mulak

Opening reception and 70th birthday celebration

Thursday Aug. 3rd, 4:30 - 8:00pm

*******

Closing reception and Gallery Talk

Wednesday Sept. 13th, 11:00 - 1:00pm

-Gallery talk begins at noon

Artist’s Statement 

by

Steven Mulak, alleged artist

Representational art, as I practice it, is an interpretation of subjects as diverse and familiar as late day shadows or an interesting abstract created by a random arrangement of chairs. It is the “found” aspect of beauty in everyday things that most appeals to the artist in me. My paintings and drawings endeavor to share the impact of a particular artistic moment with the viewer. 

Creating a painting ought to be both art and craft: If you have only the craft without the art, the result is boring and predictable. If you have the art without the craft, nobody knows what the hell you’re talking about. In order to successfully translate a subject into a painted image, the painter must be fluent in both elements, and then have just enough imagination to see what the final layer of the painting might look like before the first is applied. I strive to do just that. I try to interpret the subject with a full range of values, a harmony of warm and cool tones, a saturation of color, a balanced design and an accurate drawing beneath it all. 

From the beginning, I’ve been fascinated with the way that the artists whom I admire make shiny things look shiny and glass objects appear transparent and water appear reflective and wet. Hands that look like hands intrigue me, and portraits that are recognizable as the people they represent seem the ultimate manifestation of a painter’s skill. There has always been a part of me that wants to push his nose up close enough to the painting to “see how this guy did it.” My love affair with the techniques of representational art is abundantly evident in my work. 

I grew up watching John Gnagy on TV. I must have somehow assimilated perspective drawing through him, because I cannot remember ever learning it. I still have a carbon pencil from one of his “learn-to-draw” kits that I got one Christmas when I was a little boy. Nearly a lifetime later, I’m still that same kid who wouldn’t stop drawing, although lately the kid wears bifocals and has hair that is more gray than blonde.

For 23 years I went to sea and worked as an engineer – hardly the sort of thing a painter might sight in his development. But in virtually every day of my professional career I called upon my drawing ability to explain problems both complex and simple. I can testify to the truth of the adage that a picture can be worth a thousand words. Those I worked with regularly said, “You should become an artist.” Of course, I’m now told that I paint like an engineer. I don’t fight it - You can’t get away from who you are. 

Later, I took courses with Don Wilheim. His ideas on technique are at the foundation of my thinking about oil painting. When I came to HCC as a middle-aged student, I met Frank Cressotti. He challenged me to reconsider some hide-bound ideas I clung to and to see that the “art” part of painting could co-exist with the “craft.” At HCC I made friends with one of the most talented artist I’ve ever known: The late Don Kendrew and I learned much of what we knew about watercolors while working together. 

I try to paint like the artists I admire — all those virtuosos who were masters of the craft and seemed to be able to make a picture with a minimum number of brushstrokes. Among them, I learned from John Singer Sargent that no matter how hard you labor, the painting should look like you just whipped it off. I admire the young Corot, whose motto seemed to be “simplify, simplify.” Rowland Hilder’s watercolors are marvels that lend veracity to his statement, “The one most important aspect of watercolor painting, and a reason why practice is important, is the feel for the eventual delicacy of the final product.” Monet showed me that detail need only be suggested, and I know Renoir was talking to me when he said, “We should not be afraid to make pretty paintings.” 

Me, I make pictures. I have no wish to be taken seriously. For that matter, I’m unsure if I meet my own definition of the term “artist.” Sometimes a painting is just a painting. Still, I remain committed to the interpretive aspect of the representational work I do, and take to heart my fellow painters’ compliment of “well seen.” I paint in the hopes that the viewer might recognize something of life’s ongoing beauty and artistry trough my interpretations. 

2017

HOLYOKE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

STUDENT ART

EXHIBITION

APRIL 18 - MAY 11

RECEPTION: THURSDAY, 

APRIL 20th,    7 - 9 pm

AWARDS ANNOUNCED - 8:00 PM - LIBRARY LOBBY

The HCC Student Art Show is held in 3 locations throughout the HCC campus:  The Taber Gallery and the Library Showcases on the 2nd fl of Donahue Bldg.; the (temporary) Media Center on the 1st floor of the Donahue bldg near Rm 168; and the Art Dept. on the 3rd floor of C bldg; All locations are open to the public during regular school sessions (excepting the Taber Gallery which is open Mon - Thurs. 9am - 5pm)

IMPRESSIONS OF HOME

Art by residents of Friends of the Homeless 

-an overnight shelter for adult men and women

Feb. 27 - March 30, 2017

Gallery Talk & Reception 

Wed. March 22

11am - 1pm, talk begins at noon

with Alicia Shibley, Friends of the Homeless arts program facilitator

“Impressions of Home” is a body of work completed by individuals that reside at Friends of the Homeless, an overnight shelter for adult men and women. During 2016, an art program was developed for our residents to promote creativity and offer a safe harbor for visual and emotional expression. “Impressions of Home” explores a theme that is unique for every individual who deals with homelessness. It allows our residents to share their personal stories of resilience with the community. 

“Impressions of Home” at the Taber Gallery provides a small showing from a larger collection of work that will be up for auction at our second annual fundraiser at the Log Cabin. 

Alicia Shibley an HCC graduate from the class of 2013 is an intern and arts program facilitator at Friends of the Homeless in Springfield, MA. She will be giving a talk about the work she is involved with on Wed. March 22, at noon. 

Arrival Via Departure

Julian Parker-Burns 

Walking Planet, 2012, 3’ x 3’, mixed media photo collage

Jan. 23 - Feb 17, 2017

Gallery Talk & Reception - Wed. Feb. 8th 11am - 1pm, talk begins at noon

Evening Reception: Thurs. Feb. 9th, 5:30 - 7:30PM

Due to campus wide snow closing the evening event has been rescheduled to 
THURS. FEB. 16, 5;30 - 7:30

This exhibition's gallery hours are Monday through Thursday 9am - 5pm during regular school sessions.

Artist's Statement 

My art is about the experience where actuality and vision meet – the reality of a given space or time and the preconceptions and associations that are brought to that moment and place. As a third culture kid, a diplomat's spouse and an American expat I have made a life as a professional stranger. I am always living between cultures and drawing connections between what is in front of me and what associations come to me as a result.  For it is when we are presented with a seemingly fresh set of circumstances that we are forced into leaving our expectations behind and a unique side of ourselves is then revealed.  From this experience of clarity or insight we may connect with ourselves, each other and our environment in a more genuine manner.