Creating a Gallery by Barbara Schneider

Over the past 18 months I have been gradually developing a gallery display and exhibits for a space at the First Congregational Church in Crystal Lake, IL.  This project started, as many seem to, do with an entirely different goal.  I got involved with the renovation of what had been Fellowship Hall at the church – which needed everything from new flooring to paint, tables and chairs to light fixtures.  Like a lot of projects it grew a bit as time went on and ended up including the 40 foot hallway that runs along the outside of the large room. The walls in that hallway were constantly scuffed or scraped and just non-descript in every way.

I suggested, half-jokingly, that it would make a great gallery space.  There was discussion about how would it work, why bother, who would handle, who would PAY, etc.  In the end I have become a gallery director by default.

It has turned out to be a great project – for the church and for people coming through and for me.

We scraped together funds to buy a hanging system and to have 10 – 16 x 20 white frames made. That allows us to show either 11 x 14 pieces matted and framed, or 16 x 20 pieces unmatted and framed. We can also show other artwork that comes framed or that I figure out how to hang in some other way.

I created an artist call and also contacted artists directly. The exhibit changes every two months.  We have a framed artist statement and photo. I have enlisted two helpers for hanging and take down. I have artists scheduled through the end of 2026. Our outreach is expanding to include work from local organizations and elsewhere.

The members and visitors who come through often comment on how much they enjoy the exhibits and how they see things in new ways.

I have shown pieces from my Beautiful Faces series, we have had a nature photographer with his winter landscapes, the Sunday school kids created their own art for an exhibit, we featured collages of music and performances that were significant to the church in some way. Upcoming exhibits include:

·       Veterans portraits from the local area by Jeannine Soldner, a well known painter

·       Make a Way – An exhibit by Ileana Soto and other artists based on the writings of Lewis

·       An exhibit by the Pioneer Center (developmentally challenged clients)

·       An exhibit of pinhole photography

I am finding it to be an interesting and exciting opportunity to build community and awareness in a new way. Below are some photos of the gallery (long and narrow so hard to shoot).

 

The first two photos show the artist statment and some of my series Observations. 

 

The photo below is from the exhibit of kids art last summer.

 

 

 

The photos below are from our latest exhibit of Veterans portraits. The artist, Jeannine Soldner has created a series of 24 portraits and then stories that has been shown n many places. We have 8 of her portraits of local veterans.

I hope this inspires members to look for, or make, or through serendipity, fall into gallery possibilities. If this is a mile to far, try curating an online gallery through SAQA, Studio Art Quilt Associates, You get a lot of support and it is a really engaging experience.

An Unexpected Discovery - by Regina Marzlin

 Two weeks ago, I spent a few days in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It is the capital of our neighbouring province and I was there for the first time. Fredericton is not a large city, the population is about 63000, but being the capital of the province, there was a lot to see and do. One of the stops on my list was the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the provincial art gallery that houses important Canadian and British collections in a modern building that was expanded in 2017.

To my delight, I discovered an exhibition by Canadian sculptor and textile artist Sarah Maloney (b. 1965) called "Sarah Maloney's Pleasure Ground: A Feminist Take on the Natural World". I had seen some of her pieces before at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. This exhibition was a deep-dive into several bodies of work developed between 1993 and 2021.

 Her representations of the human body and of botanicals reference gender, pleasure, desire and power. From the wall plaque: "Meticulous, witty and historically researched, Maloney interprets mythology and symbolism in labour-intensive techniques, from welding to stitching. Her work challenges how people think about icons of Western colonialism, such as museum collections, domestic gardens, and landscape art."

The "Collect-Arrange" (No. 1,2,3) pieces depict vases from the British Museum filled with cut flowers modelled after historical botanical illustrations. It prompts questions about collecting - what is collected by public museums and by whom? It was hard to believe that those vases are embroidered!

Three life-sized stitched panels titled "Skeletal System, Circulatory System, Major Organs" depict just that. The sheer size is impressive, as is the detailed stitching.

More art dealing with body imagery (unfortunately I didn't get all the individual titles):

I really appreciated her combination of embroidery, knitting and painting with 3D objects and her sculptural approach. A very well done exhibition that I stumbled on unexpectedly. It is always satisfying to see textile art on par with all the other media in a museum setting.