The Little Gallery's New Space

WELLSVILLE: The Little Gallery is in a new place but the mission is the same, support for the Hart Comfort House in Wellsville. Barb Graves, owner of LaGra Salon and DaySpa started the Little Gallery in November 2015 in order to help a friend. Carol Riggs had a small shop in Cuba but she took off a month to have surgery. The month turned into a year because the surgery turned into a major struggle taking so much time that the business fell away from Riggs but her inventory remained.

                Barb Graves knew, at the time, that the florist in her building was moving to a new location so she had the idea to offer that space in friendship but needed more to fill the area. She asked a member of Allegany Artisans for help and so encouraged, moved forward. The florist was out on a Saturday and the Little Gallery opened on Monday, nameless but determined to work out the details.

                Formally, it is The Little Gallery Arts and Antiques and now it has a front row presence in the LaGra building. You still need to enter through LaGra but instead of walking through the salon, just pass the desk and turn right. The doorway there once led to Curves then became a pop up shop but now it’s The Little Gallery, Wellsville’s giving place for Christmas.

                For all 3 years of this enterprise, Graves has asked for nothing from those selling in her store. She covers the total cost of the area, the utilities and advertising and asks only that a portion of each sale to be donated to the Hart Comfort House.  If you do some of your Christmas shopping there, you can make the total donations made by vendors pass $4000 by the end of this year.

                Rather than listing vendors by name, let me say that you know many of them as Allegany Artisans, Wellsville Art Association members or from their work with the Allegany Arts Association. You’ll find all the names at the store so let’s focus on items. For your home or to gift there are hand-woven kitchen towels, hand sewn dolls or table runners, fabric bowls or wall hangings and handmade pottery and hand painted glassware.  

                Personal adornments include fabric purses and leggings or hand-woven scarves, hand assembled jewelry as well as totally handcrafted upcycled jewelry or the last of a group of handmade plastic pins (you’ve smiled when noticing them on people).  There are ornate, fabric purses and a small collection of music boxes. On the walls are framed photographs and original watercolors or oils or prints of other original paintings or maybe a few things handcrafted anonymously ages ago.

                A beekeeper brings in honey and related products and there is another person who makes soaps and lotions and balms. What else? Antiques. There are some people who have bought and sold antiques but others who have bought and bought now in need of emptying their homes so offer antiques from cast bronze to hand painted china or toys and hand-blown glass.  Occasionally there is furniture and right now there is a lamp with a handcrafted shade and a large cupboard as well as some smaller wooden items.

                There are also items that were purchased for Carol Riggs’ little store in Cuba, the inventory that started the whole idea. The merchandise range is wide and worth a look. The Little Gallery is only open when LaGra Salon is open and that is Tuesday through Saturday opening at 9 am but sometimes sooner. The shop is open till 8 on Thursday but only till 4 on Saturday and till 5 on other days.

                Are you wondering about what will happen to the space behind the salon? Barb Graves, a woman of ideas, will be doing some work to make a large and comfortable gathering area so that wedding parties can eat breakfast and talk as they all get hair and makeup done on that special day.

                Reach LaGra Salon at 585-59301321 or go in person to 21 East State Street in Wellsville. You might check www.lovelagra.com . The Little Gallery is present on the website or a facebook.com/ TheLittleGalleryArtsandAntiques.

                Shop Small. Shop Local. Shop to support The Hart Comfort House.

Earrings by Elaine Hardman

Simple Gifts Part 2

WELLSVILLE: This series started because my mind is often on gifts and my hands are often making them or admiring things made by others. The goal is to encourage people to make gifts of objects or time during these overlapping family seasons.

Making things is a valuable use of time. A gift seems a double gift when given with the words, “I made this for you.”         

Have you made a gift for someone lately? If not, there is still time and here are other ideas to infuse holidays with simple gifts, simple times, social interactions.

Simple Gifts Series, Part 2 of 4

This proposal is about promises and coupons, kits and ideas.

          Our children always made coupons for us. Computer programs and websites make coupon design easy, or at the least possible. You might print your own holiday cards and send them to people with a coupon good for one dinner out together or for a New Year’s Eve hike in the woods with wine, cheese and a glorious sky.

            You might give a coupon for a lesson in making jelly, in canning tomatoes, in baking a pie with a fluffy crust, in wiring a lamp, in using a smart phone or in the fine art of drywall. Is there someone you could teach to knit or to even just to join for a day of baking things your mother baked?

          If coupons don't appeal to you, consider a kit. In searching the internet for kit gift ideas, it’s easy to be buried or at the least distracted, by the tens of thousands of ideas out there. Here are some websites that offer craft ideas

www.craftsolutions.com – nestled among hundreds of advertisements are ideas

www.craftster.org – general crafts, foods, some special projects that would be one of a kind items

www.busybeekidscrafts.com - simple kid projects with instructions

          This website has many craft instructions. Print the instructions and gather the materials into a box or plastic bag and there’s a gift to go.

http://craftbits.com has all kinds of instructions including a page of gifts-in-a-jar.

          If you aren’t interested in coupons or kits, make something with a friend.

          You might get a group of people together for a workshop at The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass. Have you ever gone there? You can schedule a group party to make a project, pay the fee and go for the fun of it. One all-ages workshop involves making a picture frame. Another is about 

sandblasting designs on a glass. See cmog.org for more or call (800) 732-6845.

 (Here are some of the projects that one can make at The Studio, Corning Museum of Glass.)





          Did you know that Sarah Phillips is a marvelous teacher with a studio full of stuff and the grace and patience of a seraph? She has an open workshop on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10-3:30. Bring your lunch and ideas and pay $5 plus some additional fees if you choose to use some more expensive materials. Sarah can give you more information if you call her at (585) 437-5225.

       Having said all that, if there is snow, forget it all, grab a carrot nose and get to work on Frosty. Use your own lawn or go to a nursing home and work in view of their largest windows or find the home of a fragile person and work there. You’ll get an audience and sometimes a cup of coca afterwards. Call ahead first.

          If you want handmade and some connection without doing the making yourself, find marvelous craftspeople and artists at alleganyartisans.com. Many of us have hours by appointment. Shop slowly and hear the story behind the work to get inspired to work yourself or to buy handmade.

            There will also be a show at the Community Hall behind St. Philip's Church in Belmont on December 12 &13. There will be things hand stitched, hand formed, hand carved, hand drawn, hand strung, hand hammered, hand woven, hand built, hand thrown and otherwise carefully hand made. Find makers, their stories and some great cookies. Call (585) 808-0385 for information on this Friday/Saturday show. Maybe you can talk a one of the people there into giving private lessons.

Charles Clough Arena Painting: Hamburg

HAMBURG: There are as many definitions for art as there are shapes to form. For some it’s about interpreting society while others focus on color and texture. It might be a tool to define place or a means of recording history. For Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery this past weekend it was about 48 gallons of paint mixed, stirred, splashed and enjoyed by friends at the latest landscape project with artist Charles Clough and his “big fingers.”

                A few months ago the Albright-Knox put out a call for volunteers willing to employ puddles of paint under the guidance of Clough using his trademark abstract method. It would be, they said, performance and interaction on a work destined to be installed in the Hamburg Library.

                Potters like me are familiar with “messy” but clay messes are gray and dusty while paint makes a mess with colors. The project accepted me so garbed in mucky shoes, ruined jeans and a splattered sweat shirt, we rambled our way to Hilbert College on Saturday morning.

                There wasn’t much guidance from Aaron Ott, Curator of Public Art for the museum. He said not to wear precious clothing and to arrive at 11. The unbendable rule was to keep paint the carpet.

                Hilbert College offered the Swan Auditorium stage as a painting venue, though some might see that as an act of enormous faith in strangers. The majority of the stage was covered in plastic and duct tape while “Messy Shoe Police” guarding the stairs. 

                The Shoe Police assiduously checked feet as people aged 2 through 90 s they flung, dripped, poured, splashed splattered and dumped cups of latex paint over a 6 by 17 foot canvas with various levels of accuracy. The canvas was surrounded by a drip pan that looked inadequate to the task of containing 48 gallons.

                Each participant was allotted 3 plastic cups of color from the rainbow array chosen by Clough and each color danced with pride on the canvass for brief moments before another splat arrived.

                Little ones poured and smeared. Tidy folk approached with a plan and then bumped into wildly messy painters who flung with abandon. Others timidly dripped.

                Each participant chose an area, played the paint game and recorded their efforts by pressing a cardboard over their area and pulling it away with a gooey mono print that the Albright Knox would mail to them later.

                As the hours passed, cameras took still shots, time lapse and videos because the project includes a film and book. Periodically Clough came out to make mono prints that he would add to later and then present as gifts to the Erie County Library System to display as they wished with the primary canvass going for permanent installation at the Hamburg Library.

                Clough interacted with many talking about their areas of work and posing for photos, particularly with family groups who came to get messy together.

                In a sense this project started in 1985 when Clough was invited to paint a 20 x 60 foot wall at the Brooklyn Museum. He’d been finger painting small pieces and having them photographed and printed in larger formats but there were 2 problems. Large photos at the time were expensive and disappointing.

                “What I needed,” said Clough, “were bigger fingers.”

                So, he made big fingers. Wooden circles and ovals were affixed to long poles and covered with padding and leather. Some were used as single units and others were banded together in a series of 4 fingers.

                When people told him that their ___________ (fill in the space) could paint like that, he decided to let people in, show them the process and let them try. People, he thought, didn’t often enough experience art as uncertainty, choice and community.

                At this project, one enthusiastic painter was 9 year old Maggie Ggiehart. Maggie worked carefully with greens and black and pulled an intricate swirl of color on her mono print. She said that her dad gave her an easel and canvas to work on at home. Her dad said they might buy a tarp to protect the floor since Maggie was vibrating with enthusiasm after her experience.

                While Maggie and 199 others had their hands in the work, the finished canvas will likely not show her touch. At 5 pm, Clough was set to take on the remainder of the paints with some big fingers and make the surface his own. The other 200 participants will be present in the resulting book and film as well as their personal mono prints.

                The Albright Knox Art Gallery is on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo and offers tours, classes, exhibits, lectures, yoga, community outreach and hundreds of definitions of art. 

Friends of Edwin Drood

ALFRED: Were you one of the crowd who traveled to 1892 with the cast of T he Mystery of Edwin Drood last week? 

                Hundreds of people booed and hissed, laughed and chortled, clapped and whistled over the song, dance and antics on the stage. As part of the event, a small group played the background music to support all the Drood-tivity. May I introduce the members of the “fully trained orchestra?”

                Kyle Merrifield, percussion, said that his favorite part of high school was playing in pit orchestras for the annual musical. He didn’t expect that he’d be in a musical at AU so when Dr. Foster asked him to be part of Drood’s pit, he eagerly accepted.

                Kyle said that he’s not a singer or dancer so the pit suits him well. Drood, he said, is a particularly fun musical for a pit member because of the interaction between pit and actors.

                Kyle played several instruments but his grin widened when hammering away on the tympani for the thunder storm. (I can attest to his enthusiasm because my ears were inches away from the explosive barrage.)

                Pit members are often hidden but this pit was in front -able to see actors and audience. Kyle enjoyed the boisterous enthusiasm of Drood’s audience and felt more a part of this show than others.

                The most pit-experienced member was Eric Prentice, piano.  He’s not certain how many pit orchestras he’s played in - 50 to 60. Eric started playing piano in pits in Hornell while he was still in school and is employed as an accompanist by Hornell Schools. He has also played for every Hornell Rotary musical for the last 20 years and plays for the Hornell Community Theater too.

                In his opinion, Drood’s musical score was challenging and was made more so by being handwritten. Handwritten scores are onerous to read especially when pages are sprinkled with notes, lyrics and numerous key and time changes all to be mastered while following the conductor who follows vocalists. 

                The drum set work was done by Hunter Haddad, a skilled saxophonist who took brief instruction from Kyle about reading some specific percussion notation.  “I just looked at the music and it made sense,” he said.

                Hunter felt that the music was entertaining and that Drood was singular experience. He particularly liked how the actors went into the audience before each act. He felt satisfied with the performance of the pit saying, “I think we did well and I’m glad of it.”

                Similarly, Scott DeFranco Norton never before played the upright double bass. He was supposed to play electric bass but his instrument needed repair so thought he might substitute his main instrument, tuba. Instead, Dr. Foster suggested that he work out how to play the upright double bass.

                The double bass has no frets and is played with a bow which is to say, it’s not much like an electric bass but undeterred by what might be a stressful situation for some (most), Scott figured it out, often played by ear and just plain made it work.

                This was also Scott’s first experience in a pit orchestra. In high school, Scott performed on stage. Drood, he said, was the most interesting musical he’d been in or seen. “It was exciting to be a part of it.”

                Some other first time experiences belonged to Jay Horwath (trumpet, piccolo trumpet and flugelhorn).  Jay has never before been in a pit or played piccolo trumpet.

                The piccolo trumpet and flugelhorn have 4 values but Jay said those are for alternate fingerings. They can all be played with trumpet fingerings.

                “The piccolo trumpet,” he said, “looks small and seems like it should be easy but it’s not. It takes a different amount of air and has a different feel.”

                Jay found the audience participation in Drood exciting and enjoyed this first experience working with vocalists. He especially enjoyed the facial expressions that Darren Palmer put into the character of Bazzard.

                “Bazzard brings a lot of comic relief. While at times he seems not to fit, he gives the show fullness.”

                Peter Metz took time from research to play trombone for Drood. This was his second musical after doing Crazy for You in high school.  “The best way to sum up Drood is to call it a fun show.”

                While much of the show is amusing, a few of the scenes are dramatic and serious. One such is in the duet between the characters of Rosa and John Jasper. This was a highlight in the production for Peter.

                Brooke Tillotson speeds through her days with band, orchestra, dance, classes and work soshoe-horning in pit orchestra rehearsals wasn’t easy but she had a good time. She named Moonfall/The Name of Love as a favorite with Both Sides of the Coin as a close second.

                Chris Foster, conductor, said that he’d never heard of The Mystery of Edwin Drood until it was proposed for this semester. He was aware of the composer, Rupert Holmes, as author of Escape (The Pina Colada Song) and he came to appreciate the songs in Drood, a rollicking farce. The audience participation made it particularly fun.

                Drood was the first musical pit experience for Jasper Wright, bassoon. Jasper hadn’t realized how different it is to play for a musical. The score is handed out, there are a few rehearsals and then one works with the vocalists. In almost no time, the pit is in the production. For Jasper, Reverend Chrisparkle’s confession was always amusing.  

                Make note of these other performances at Alfred University. The Symphonic Orchestra –Friday, April 25, 7 pm; Jazz Band -Monday, April 28. 7:30; Symphonic Band - Friday, May 2, 7:30. All are scheduled for the Miller Performing Arts Center and are free and open to the public.

(Elaine Hardman played flute/piccolo in the pit.)

Photo Dr. Chris Foster, Kyle Merrifield (living dangerously), Jasper Wright, Eric Prentice, Peter Metz, Jay Horwath , Hunter Haddad, Brooke Tillotson, Scott DeFranco-Norton

Broken Calculator upcycled into earrings

Rick tried to throw away a calculator. First he took it apart and I found the pieces and then, well, then there were earrings. The first pair is on its way to Baton Rouge to Michaela because she's a mathematician and that seemed right.

These earrings are made from the broken calculator, scraps of wire, beads from an old necklace and brand new, handmade, niobium earwires because nobody is ever allergic to niobium.  My earrings sell for $11 per pair plus tax and or shipping or you can just stop by the studio and look.

At Hot Dog Day in Alfred, if the weather is friendly.

At the Annual Snowman Show on Mother’s Day Weekend at St. Philips’ Church Hall on Route 19 in Belmont, always at the Studio Tour in my studio on the weekend after Columbus Day and whenever you have time to stop by.
www.facebook.com/StoneFlowerPottery

www.StoneFlowerPottery.com

Calling Miss Olive for Tea Time

One of my sculptural teapots will shortly steam to Chicago to be exhibited in the 25th Anniversary Teapot Show, "On The Road Again" curated by Joan Houlehen and hosted at Chiaroscuro at Watertower Place.

 Calling Miss Olive for Tea Time is rescued trash. The body of the piece is a olive pomace can from the kitchens of Arrowmont. While studying there I ate this not knowing the great distance between olive oil and olive pomace. Olives, cold pressed, release their flavorful oil leaving behind pulp. Pulp was once seen as appropriate hog food but now it is heated, dowsed with hexane and coaxed to release a secondary product - pomace oil.

The green of the can looked right with the green spout/hand that has moved from spot to spot in my studio for years. The phone, also green, was the perfect handle and again color called my eye to the watch with a red spangled band. The flower-buttons on the phone face are from a long, black and white dress I wore while teaching preschool. 

Starting Small, show at The Artist Knot

Boats by Molly Dougherty (photo provided)

Amy Brown meant to start small but her first show at the newly remodeled gallery, the Artist Knot in Andover, drew a huge crowd – enormous in enthusiasm and massively impressed.

Among the first guests to walk in were Rick and Sarah Recio from Wellsville. Rick said that several forces nudged them to attend the show. They read articles about the store/gallery in 2 area papers and then their neighbor brought a gift from the Artist Knot. Rick drove past it twice a day for a while – always too early or too late to stop – but the postcard about the show made them set the date for a visit.

Recios found three “favorites” on display in the show as well as in the main gallery: a Salvador Dali print, a painting of elephant tulips and a Dick Lang bowl. They sipped wine, visited friends, snacked on an engaging spread of food and in the end chose the Dali, an intricate design wonderfully framed and matted.

Ann and Rich Hampshire, present, were pleased that there is a place like the Artist Knot to show off all our local artists.

Anthony Lipnicki, proprietor of the Mustard Seed Inn, said, “This is a wonderful addition to the community of Andover. Andover is turning into “the place to be” and this opening gave me the chance to appreciate the talent in our area. It also made me realize the quality of art made by some of my friends.”

Another guest, Ty Houston from Hornell, spent a great deal of time studying Bob Chaffee’s wood carvings as well as an oil painting by Jay Pullman of Hornell. Pullman’s painting, Time for a Rest III showed a pile of logs, large diameter pieces on the bottom and smaller on the top, a blue jacket hanging on one log and a maul leaning against its future task.

Houston works for the Tribune in Hornell. Last week, her job required her to visit a sawmill so the topic in Pullman’s piece caught her eye, surprising her. While working, she had walked past stacks of wood, mundane things unworthy of note, but Pullman had looked at much the same scene and turned it into art. “He took a small part of life and made it bigger. He saw something I would never have seen,” she said as she continued to study the patterns in the wood.

“The title is Time for a Rest III and that makes me want to know the story. Was the jacket still on the person in number one? Was there a number 4? Was it the painter’s jacket?”

Houston left those questions hanging but later Pullman arrived with answers. Before painting this series, he had been living in the south but hurricane Katrina destroyed his home so he moved to the “family homestead” in Hartsville. There he faced that pile of wood, wore that jacket and wielded that maul to turn chunks of tree into winter heat. His wood piles were neatly stacked with an artist’s eye toward pattern - and the pattern came to this series of paintings. The larger logs at the bottom of the stack were those that refused to yield to his maul.

The Artist Knot is filled with the work of 48 artist and artisans but Starting Small has small works created by 12 of them. The show includes drawings by Jerry Brown, paintings by Tom O’Grady and o’bhriuthiann, wood carvings by Alec MacCrea, silver jewelry by Trina Allen and pottery by Mark Corwine. Molly Dougherty, of Richburg, was not only the youngest artist but the most popular among patrons Starting Small opened on Friday, March 12, 2010 and continues on Tuesdays through Saturdays until April 23 during regular hours. In addition to art, the Artist Knot also sells professional art supplies and materials. Visit www.ArtistKnot.com for hours.




Bob Chaffee's Lonesome Indian (photo provided)



Trina Allen's Free Falling Leaves necklace (photo provided)


Dick Lang's Brown Covered Jar (photo provided)

Stop the Pottery -Time for TV

Being president of the Allegany Artisans is one of those jobs pointing in more directions than a porcupine’s quills.
Last Wednesday was like that. I was trying not to skid into panic mode over the Studio Tour (just 11 days off) and was making one of my to-do-list/calendars that would map my way through the studio and end with all pots dried, bisque, glazed, priced and displayed when I remembered that one of my points of duty involved calling Lea DiCenso, executive producer at AM Buffalo. I had talked with her a week earlier and she said that hosting the Allegany Artisans on the show this year unlikely but she never knew what might happen. She has managed to feature the Artisans every year for a while now. We couldn’t complain about a year off.
I dialed expecting voice mail. She answered. I expected her to accept a few photos and information for WKBW’s website but she jumped into business mode. There was a cancellation. 6 minutes were available on Thursday – 18 hours hence. Could I make a few things happen?
My first use of the to-do-list/calendar was to flip it over to take notes from Lea while swallowing concerns for pottery. Pots could dry while I was on TV on Thursday.
I started mental calculations and plans. Sarah Phillips agreed to throw her gardening aside and go with me. She would pack up some paintings. I started taking tracking down 6 photos – 300 dpi – horizontal orientation.
Lea needed a poster that would work on TV. She had rattled off pixel dimensions that I immediately forgot. (Don’t tell her that.) The Allegany Artisans always have a vertical poster and she wanted horizontal. Sarah and I brainstormed options and I remembered that Hope Zaccagni had sent a pdf of part of the brochure for our website. Rick dropped what he was doing to work on that. If he cut off the top and bottom and photo-shopped the Tourism phone number and website over the group photo, we could call it a horizontal poster.
Hope Zaccagni designed the brochure so had all the photos but she was in meetings all day but Steve Walker had some and so did Kandace and Alec and so did I. Mine were from 2008 but a Bruce Greene teapot is timeless. WKBW had jpgs in a couple of hours.
Russ Allen agreed to drop off a wooden train and Bob Chaffee promised a carved plate and a never-wrinkles table cover. I packed my Pete Midgley vase from the mantle, Hope’s drawing from the dining room and chose a shirt that would show off my Jim Horn pin in googly-eyed splendor.
In the morning Sarah and I drove to Buffalo. Security at WKBW is strict. There are lots of doors but visitors go to the front door and call the person who is expecting them. Inside there are reception areas, offices and rooms filled with monitors, keyboards and blinking lights all held together by miles of cables and wires.
AM Buffalo is a live show and the studio has a few areas – the jackpot drawing set, the sofa set, the rolling table and the kitchen. There are 5 cameras aimed in different direction. Each wears a monitor for the text above its unblinking eye but there are no people behind the cameras. The people are off in those equipment-filled rooms. At least I expect they are during the show. When we arrived just after 9 a.m., the crew that came to work at 4:30 that morning was having lunch.
Sarah and I set up our art and talked about it. Linda Pellegrino laughed at my cow bank while Lea insisted it was a pig. Mike told me to bring in the table and clay demo stuff that Lea said to leave in the car. “Ask Lea,” I said, not wishing to be stuck in the middle of anything.
As if Sarah and I had a smidge of Linda’s experience and ease we were given a 2 minute sketch of our 6 minute show. It was my 3rd show and I knew not to try to prepare. What I hoped to say would never fit with what Linda would shoot out as a question.
I set my inner monitors to keep with the conversation and mention as many artisans as possible. Push the phone number. Name the website. Keep breathing. Try not to look doopy. Don’t cough. Don’t sneeze on Linda.
Seconds later the segment was over. Linda said it was easy to go on air with us. We were so confident and at ease. Could have fooled me.
I stopped at the Allegany County Tourism office on the way home. Patience Regan jumped out of her chair saying I should have warned her before getting myself on some big TV production. She had 18 phone calls in just 2 hours. Whether or not you caught us on WKBW, come to my studio for great pots, Jim Horn’s pins, and refreshments. Sarah says to see her in Rushford for paintings, silk scarves and better refreshments.
Of course there are more choices. Visit www.AlleganyArtisans.com to find all 36 locations and all 47 artisans offering locally made, quality work during the 22nd annual Studio Tour.