Cooperstown Juried Art Show

http://www.cooperstownart.com/photofiles.html

On a random adventure, i made a trip to Cooperstown with a few friends. We had never been there before and decided to jaunt around downtown and check out the scenes. Upon deciding the baseball hall of fame was too boring and expensive to be worthwhile, we crossed the street to the library/gallery to check if there was a show going on. To our pleasure, the Regional Juried Art Show was in town.

The gallery was held in the upstairs gallery space at the library. The show was a double-feature, with a private art show and a juried regional show. The regional show featured mostly paintings with a handful of large sculptures in the middle of the room. The painting were very skilled and impressive, ranging from large acrylics to small, detailed oils and sketches. My favorite was an oil on canvas of a fluffy cat. The content of the painting was not my favorite, but rather the way in which it was framed and presented. As a whole, the painting was neutral and dark, with a highly detailed cat. It was classic, bordered by a thick, ornate frame. The piece was just beautiful, not necessarily interesting, but simply beautiful. Another favorite was a digital print of a nude but with florescent orange highlight around the body. It was so vibrant, it looked backlit. It took many second looks and waving hands over the piece to try to determine if it was indeed backlit.

The private show was "objects of art" and featured the artist Larry Engel. The sculptures in this show were small and detailed, mostly made of bronze. He liked to take objects and mash them up with other objects to convey a (usually political or societal) message. I liked the sculpture of a turtle with a pen tip for a head. It was entitled "the check is in the mail." Another favorite was the set of occupational pieces. He liked to place a face on objects and entitle them after the occupation the tool is used for. If this is confusing, he crafted a face on a chisel and called it "portrait of a sculptor." Many of his pieces had a great message and level of skill.

After the show, we definitely felt our time and money (it was free) was well spent. I throughly enjoyed the show and will remember some of these pieces for later inspiration. The link above is to the page of the gallery and features pictures from the show so you can see the pieces for yourself.