Blog

     Just back from trip to deliver artwork to gallery in PA - early delivery for November 18th reception for Holiday Show but best to drive there when weather hasn't turned snowy!  "My" part of PA is hilly, narrow country roads edging small urban areas.
     Garth Gallery is in an historic building in Columbia, PA, near the Susquehanna River, brick sidewalk and granite-step entrance showing its era.  The main floor gallery space has the original tin high ceilings and soft pine flooring, light pouring in from large front windows.  A small hall gallery runs parallel to a staircase up to another large gallery space, adjacent to a comfy-chaired coffee bar.  Receptions most often include live piano music, jazz & pop standards fr the most part, on the baby grand that lives there.  Elegant floral arrangements and luscious pastries most often accompany opening receptions. You'd never know you're in a small PA city rather than Boston or Chicago!
     The best part of delivering my artwork was visiting with the gallerist, hearing his tales of the pandemic closing, how he and local artists coped with the strangeness, with waiting and wondering.  Good news, really - all came out with physical health intact, although somewhat emotionally and financially dazed.  All have stories of cascading chaos, too, of course!
     Going & coming from that area of PA is both tedious and beautiful - superhighway driving makes me marvel at the engineering that created such a safe trail, flying on four wheels through mountainous cuts in Virginia and North Carolina, miles & miles of concrete under tons and tons of tires & steel.  Yet Mother Nature sits serenely alongside the speeding vehicles - trees and trees and trees, so many varieties and shapes growing as screens close to the roadway, with breaks showing undulating fields leading to nearby mountains - the Blue Mountains, to be specific.  And it's not hard to see how they were so named!  Oh, and the breathtakingly gorgeous sky at sunset . . .!!!
     Safely back in my studio now, creating more artwork I know was informed by that passing scenery, even if not directly showing it.  I'm always glad and grateful the opportunity to create artwork has come my way!