GRO Exhibition Press Release: October-November, 2024

PRESS RELEASE. For immediate release
Contact Patti Trimble: pmtrim@gmail.com, (707) 360-8189

GALLERY ROUTE ONE EXHIBITIONS:

Take A Moment: Will Thoms
Imperfect Offerings: Betsy Kellas
Make a Way: Visiting Artists Pat DaRif, Ileana Soto, Joanne Weis, Valerie White

Shows run October 26 to December 1, 2024
Gallery Hours 11-5, Thursday through Monday
Opening Reception: October 26 from 3-5pm. Artist Talks at 3pm

SUMMARY:
Three Mixed-Media Exhibits Open October 6 at GRO in Point Reyes: Take A Moment: Will Thoms; Imperfect Offerings: Betsy Kellas; and Make a Way: by Visiting Artists Pat DaRif, Ileana Soto, Joanne Weis, and Valerie White. Created with an encyclopedia of materials, the exhibits offer responses to today’s world: from the importance of looking, to seeing “things as they are”, to a timely conversation about voting rights. The public is invited to a Gallery Opening on October 26 from 3 to 5. Listen to artists talks at 3 pm and enjoy a glass of wine while talking informally with the artists. Shows run through December 1 and the gallery is open 11-5 Thursday through Sunday.

CENTER GALLERY:
In the Center Gallery, GRO presents Will Thoms: Take a Moment, a series of colorful collaged grid paintings that mark a new development in his longtime engagement with grids and found materials. Here Thoms has assembled small multi-media works from freely painted paper scraps, creating rhythmic patterns, nearly musical movements for the eye. Among the bright colors and subtle textures, fractured incomplete newspaper stories appear and disappear. This is a reminder, says Thoms —even for the artist working alone in the studio— of the hum of distant chatter you can’t get away from, the chorus commenting from far away. The show’s title asks visitors to please Take a Moment, to slow down to really look, take time to lose oneself in the work, join the artist’s attentive meditation. Thoms hopes viewers will see something they didn’t expect.

“Maybe that’s the goal of all visual art, to become more present in the moment and enlarge our ability to perceive, be present.” —Will Thoms

ANNEX GALLERY:
GRO presents printmaker and ceramicist Betsy Kellas: Imperfect Offerings. The show creates space for a quiet conversation between Kellas’ two-dimensional and three-dimensional works. On the walls are black and white monotypes with Chine-collé (pasted) collage. These are small, elegant, and formal. Also in the gallery are delicate ceramic sculptures, some that are bowl-like, suggesting containers made for air. Kellas is influenced by, among other things, Dada and abstract expressionism. Her work is nonrepresentational, expression of authentic responses that arrive before languag begins naming and explaining.

“This is an exhibition of and about things as they are. Along with decades of practice, experience and expertise, this work bears witness to the unexpected, the unwanted, the things beyond our control that confuse us, crack us open and change us as we live our lives. These are my imperfect offerings, works that I love, made with love.” —Betsy Kellas

PROJECT SPACE
GRO welcomes visiting artists Pat DaRif, Ileana Soto, Joanne Weis, and Valerie White, and their exhibit, Make A Way. These four artists share their passionate concerns for voting rights in a lively and emotional exhibit of tactile fiber art.(The practice is also called art quilt, surface design, collage, mixed media, and textile art.) The images are made with cloth, paint, dye, photo transfer, silk screens, stich, patterning, and the written word. Brightly colored images are hung in the gallery like paintings, telling stories of voting history.

The concept for this exhibit began with zoom conversations among the four women, a place they could share their alarm and outrage at the Supreme Court’s repeal of voter protections in southern states and more recent state laws restricting votes for the poor, the elderly, and for Black, Latino, Native American and other minority voters. From this beginning, they formed an exhibit that expresses outrage, alarm, and also hope for change. The title honors Civil Rights icon John Lewis who said of his tireless work: “We called (our work) ‘making a way out of no way,” . . . we knew without any doubt that somebody who was greater than us all would make a way out of no way and protect the defenders of truth.”

In their commitment to Democracy, the artists created a democratic exhibit. They replaced political argument with heartfelt concerns about our country. Their visions and voices hail from both red and blue states, and from diverse backgrounds, family histories, research projects, and ethnicities, expressed in their varied styles.

“As we struggle with the current reality, we hope to educate and promote community interaction and conversation. The story of voter suppression is the story of how delicate and fragile our democracy is.” —from the “Make a Way” artist statement

A regional landmark since 1983, Gallery Route One is an arts organization located in the town of Point Reyes Station, adjacent to the entry for Marin County’s Point Reyes National Seashore. Besides offering rotating exhibits by member artists, GRO also maintains its various programs as well as exhibitions addressing environmental, immigration and social justice issues. For more information, please visit: https://galleryrouteone.org/