Art in The Barn at Race Brook Lodge: Sunday October 1st, 2017 - 4-6pm opening reception, 6-8 pm dinner by the Stagecoach Tavern (served in The Barn), 8-10 pm live music in The Barn.
"Heal Yourself" is a Berkshire community art show showcasing local artists, who use their art as a means to heal through self-expression.
4-6pm Join us for the opening reception, featuring paintings, sculptures, video & performance.
6-8pm Enjoy dinner in The Stagecoach Tavern (view menu)
8-10pm Live music: Sunday Show n' Tell
Gather and be inspired in The Barn at Race Brook Lodge. Built by hard-working New England farmers 160 years ago, our barn stands in lofty and quiet beauty, evoking honesty, strength and Yankee determination. The big barn has 2000 sq. ft. of sky lit open space for retreats, reunions, and workshops, plus a separate 450 sq. ft. seminar room, breakout areas, and kitchen.
Gather and be inspired in The Barn at Race Brook Lodge. Built by hard-working New England farmers 160 years ago, our barn stands in lofty and quiet beauty, evoking honesty, strength and Yankee determination. The big barn has 2000 sq. ft. of sky lit open space for retreats, reunions, and workshops, plus a separate 450 sq. ft. seminar room, breakout areas, and kitchen.
Featuring Local Artists:
Baby of the Abyss - paintings
Jacob Fossum
Jim Jasper
Painting by Kiki Dufault
Kiki Dufault
Each painting begins with a warm-hued under painting or wash which must have a drying time before I can begin to actively paint and mix color. Once dry, I approach each painting. I most often do this without a plan (unless I am working “from life” with a model or out in the landscape) as I am certain that through the spontaneous movement of paint the work will evolve. Through this movement of color and form I become the vehicle for a certain dialogue to unfold. The dialogue evolves through space, time, action, and subconsciousness, as a reflection of my inner landscape and my knowledge of the plastic medium. I work on multiple paintings at once to utilize my paint to the fullest. The paintings speak to each other and one act inspires another if you will. These things resolve themselves in the process and I am responding to the needs of the paintings at hand. I continue working until it becomes clear to me that the time for the first "pause" is eminent. It is in this interplay of pause and action that the painting is revealed. Sometimes it requires a lot of paint, or the total destruction of that very image that was first emerging, to arrive at the final resting place where the dialogue of color is complete and it resonates in the pause. This is the moment I know the painting is largely finished.This point of completion evokes a sense of timelessness.
Mark Rothko said it well:
“We are dealing with the verities of time and space, life and death, the heights of exaltation and the depths of despair.”
Jess Kitch - mixed media painting
painting by Jess Kitch
Surrounded by wild nature, when one allows themselves to stop and inhale slowly, that is when the body can relax and dissolve into its true essence... pure air filters through all of the stuck places and empties them. In stillness, in inner silence, we can hear nature speak. She reveals that she is the keeper of everything we need. Healing is right here already.
This is is where my artistic process begins. The plants speak to me, and in my imperfect humanness, I translate their messages through words and color.
Racebrook is full of natural wild medicine. From living here this past summer, I've begun to learn about some key plants to add into my arsenal of medicine. This Sunday, I'd like to share what I've learned and learn from you, too...
My mixed media paintings work with Mother Nature's inherent beauty and feature Plantain leaves, Yarrow, Birch Bark, Dandelion, Mugwort, Motherwort, Jewelweed and fall foliage.
will be showcasing the 6 minute festival cut of this experimental video she made to reconcile her gender identity with how girls and women were portrayed in the late 70s through mid 80s television that culturally conditioned her. The piece also explores the contrast of her own gender identity with that of her identical twin.
This is a 3 min sample from a 3 channel video installation originally shown at the MIX NYC Queer Experimental Film Festival in NYC 2008
crochet sculptures by Huck Elling
Huckleberry Elling was born and raised in Los Angeles and learned to crochet watching her mom as a child. In her youth she hitchhiked through the US and abroad, using her crocheted hats and dolls as currency. She settled down in Western Massachusetts where she is raising her family and furthering her artistic pursuits.
In her 1969 Airstream trailer studio, Huck crochets new and vintage yarns into colorful, textural, playful and creepy masks and standing figures. She invites people to try on, interact, and bring to life these storybook-like characters.
Erin C. Potter
Having grown up in the woods of Berkshire county, Potter’s identity and artistic voice are forever entwined with the forest, like the branches and roots so heavily featured in her work. The great wild expanse is revealed in parts throughout her artwork, her romance with nature ever-evident. For Potter, art is about describing and conveying the beauty already around us, too often unnoticed.
“I am always chasing a feeling when I paint. The feeling you get when the sun shines through the trees in just the right way, that you can see the fairies. Or when the moon casts its blue light over a foggy meadow. The smell of the mud in springtime when we start to see color again, or a fresh snowfall when the world sparkles, covered in frost,” Potter explains.
With impressive breadth, Potter dabbles and displays talent in a variety of media, including painting and photography, clothing, jewelry and headdress design, and performance art. “Art is in everything we do,” Potter says, “whether it is cooking, dancing, making a campfire, growing a garden—I am inspired by life, and the world around me, so I grew to express myself in many ways.”
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West African influences with modern experimental music approaches. At the heart of Esther's musical practice is a deep love and respect for nature.