show will run from 11.14 - 12.13.

we will be open thursday- sunday 10am-3pm through the holidays. no appointment necessary! we will limit visitors to 6 in the gallery for safe social distancing, and masks will be required.

since the pandemic, larry slezak has been marking time on old wood timbers, mostly from his 200 year old dairy farm in cummington, ma. each board represents one month, with one stripe painted each day. in total, slezak plans to paint 365 stripes on 12 timbers. this work in progress, presenting 7 timbers, provides a daily meditative practice that marks time during the pandemic. each board becomes a calendar. “they reflect the idea of marking time: much the way prisoners draw hash marks on the walls of their cells”. in another group of work old hand tools are painted with color bands. in this body of work the stripes are symbolic of time and the repetition of manual labor. larry slezak received an mfa from umass in 1974, founded the fine arts gallery at springfield tech. commumity college, where he also taught art from 1974-2009. his work has been exhibited nationally and is numerous institutional collections.

i first saw ‘on today’, and open-ended program started in 2016 by louis watts on his website last year. his original idea was to create 64 nearly identical individual charcoal drawings of a single form. there were numerous themes that watts was exploring - transcendence through quotidian labor, secular mysticism, factory art production and others. the project continued to unfold when dr. gary slater, an austin, tx based theological scholar, produced an essay ‘on today’ that was turned into a newspaper and made available at the exhibition. since then, the project has continued to expand to an animation project and a book. influenced by a new environment, amid a pandemic, and in relationship to the other art, we have the opportunity to bring our own interpretation to his work. watts received a mfa from unc in 2017. he is the director of oneoneone art gallery in chapel hill, nc. he recently has had solo exhibitions in texas, new york and north carolina.

there is a cowboy in the white house. a bully. he embraces notions of masculinity that have caused real damage in our country. in his world view, and his followers, you are weak to wear a mask, express compassion or sympathy, or appear to be sick. interdisciplinary artist ben pinder creates a surreal visual and funny mythology of american masculinity. His work is drawn from early woodcuts, medieval iconography and children’s drawings, sculptures and videos to create a sharp critique of american myth making. pinder’s work has been exhibited at brooklyn arts council, the icebox project space in philadelphia, smack mellon, wassaic projects, delaware center for the contemporary arts, and the samuel dorsky museum of art. other projects include fictional ‘travelers guide to red hook’, a zine of poetry and drawings with poet megan dunn, a collaboration on a video and performance with justin wixson and ‘the mythic history of america, for america super pac’.

the ‘iphone series’ began while exploring the negative impact the phone has had on my life. like many, i can feel addicted to the phone. i decided to use the silhouette of my iphone as a template for a series of daily drawings that would be done over a 30 day period. i would spend as much time on the drawings as i do on my phone. what was found in the process is what i think has been lost. a quieter mind. the meditative contemplative space created by just being in a physical space. and the discovery of seeing. in the digital world i feel anxious, distracted, and unsettled. the surface and the superficial a constant. the gift is in the work. turn the phone off.