Prize winners at this year’s Prallsville Mills Show

Remembering the Artsbridge Show at Prallsville Mills
by Barbara Osterman

Upon seeing the Prallsville Mills show, variety was the first word that came to my mind. I quizzed several others and found that I was not alone in that opinion. The quality of the show was certainly adequate, but I have the feeling that diversity was also in the jury’s thoughts. This made the exhibition special because

it gave adventurous artists an opportunity to display their works. I believe that the aim of Artsbridge is to encourage the artists’ growth. Most galleries prefer that artist be predictable, but that is not what makes us creative.

The work at Prallsville showed great range: from the simplicity of Joan Feiss’s figure painting to the complication of James Freeman’s first-prize winner, Split Path. Everywhere I looked, I saw contrast. Louis Fatta’s iron piece Red Skate with Yellow Ant, with its solid textures, was a complement to Frances Heinrich’s rose petals and photo transfer sculpture.

There were contrasts in photos as well. Ingeborg Snipes took the color of fields and pushed it up a notch on the computer, giving us a new feeling for the land and its patterns, as Marilyn Anderson took her black and white figure photo and minimized the shapes. Even the figure ran the gamut. Tomi Urayama gave a romantic feeling to her Spring Dreams, while Marion Robertson Frey’s figures had a harsher look, with the sharp edges in Angels of Repose. I admired and studied Daniel Armstrong’s exquisitely rendered pen and ink, and I was stopped in my tracks by the courage of Ralph Caparulo in his simple stroke piece. The sharpest contrast was between Susanne Pitak Davis’s figure, which is overwhelmingly active, and the simple golden torso by Lou Desmarais.

It seemed that each medium was taken to its limit. I don’t know when I have seen such powerful watercolor as Mary Blackey’s Behemoth, and we can’t forget the new direction of Jonathan Hertzel, creating his sculpture from the ceiling down.

Another delicious aspect of this year’s show was the number of different media used by the artists, which included encaustic, cyanotype, zerox transfer, weaving, markers, light bulbs, and, the most fun of all, Barry Snyder’s saddle.

This year’s show at Prallsville Mills was also special because it took many people to pull it together, and in the process we learned more about each other. Dianne Lavell told me how much fun it was to help with the hanging. If you haven’t contributed your time to Artsbridge, keep this in mind for next year. It’s an especially good activity for “awayers” who can’t make committee meetings. The opening was another chance to mingle, with so many attending. I especially liked the evening when some of the artists talked about their work in the show. It was a way to experience how the artists think and feel, and I learned about Japanese crafts, new ways to apply paint, and interesting fibers for weaving.

This year, we in Artsbridge should be grateful for our lively group, our hard-working volunteers, a beautiful place to show, and the good weather that brought out the appreciators. We also should thank the Michener Museum for supporting the show by buying pieces for the museum. I look forward to next year when we will have another opportunity like this to show our stuff.

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