First Friday Art Walk
November 3, 2023 @ 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Join friends at Art Space Vincennes, Open Gallery, Northwest Territory Art Guild Gallery and Shircliff Gallery for the First Friday Art Walk, November 3, 5 – 8 pm.
Art Space Vincennes LLC, 521 Main will offer a final opportunity to view Light and Gravity, artworks constructed from felted wool by Indianapolis sculptor Gary Schmitt.
Schmitt earned his BFA in Printmaking from Ohio University and MS in Informatics-New Media from IUPUI Indianapolis. He has worked in numerous art-related areas including outdoor muralist, gallery assistant, painter, printmaker, sculptor, graphic designer, new media designer and art instructor. His current focus is sculpting objects and images in wool. He states: “I sculpt objects in wool because of how the characteristics of the material transform the subjects and affect their meaning. The felted wool not only describes the shape, it suggests other qualities such as blurring of intent, softness, or even antithetically, roughness. The meanings can be contradicting – contrasting serious and humorous aspects. I enjoy exploring ideas and connecting them, discovering things I don’t expect.”
Regular gallery hours Tue – Sat Noon – 5 pm. 812-887-6145
Northwest Territory Art Guild, 316 Main will host a tribute to the late Jules “Tony” Bouillet, one of the founding members of the Guild and a great asset to the organization over many years. Works from the Guild’s collection of Bouillet’s art will be on display and any who have this artists’s work and would like to add to the exhibition are invited to contact the Guild. Some pieces will be for sale, including some of Bouillet’s hand-carved ducks.
Seasonal art works by Guild members will also be on display and for sale.
Regular gallery hours: Tue – Sat 11 am – 2 pm. Additional hours by appointment; contact the gallery via Facebook.
The Open Gallery, 329 Main will present Abandoned Spaces, photographs by Ron Wise. Wise is Professor of Graphic Design at Vincennes University. He shot the photos in this series while visiting the historical Knox County Asylum for Orphans, just south of Vincennes.
Wise says that what intrigued him about this space, like others he’s photographed, is that “the effects of time on abandoned spaces seem to create a different reality as echoes of the past continue to reverberate through the emptiness”. The images, most of which are black and white, capture the stark grandeur of this 140-year-old structure, built by Knox County in 1882 for the ‘outcasts’ and marginalized of the area: the disabled, the impoverished, displaced veterans, orphaned children and the homeless. The joy and the grief, the hopelessness and the dreams, the camaraderie and the loneliness resonate in these photos.
With this in mind, the Open Gallery is encouraging patrons to not only purchase the prints but also to donate to the restoration of this beautiful building, considered among the top 10 endangered landmarks in the state.
As always, hors d’oeuvres and live music will be served up to the public. Professor Wise will be available to discuss his work with visitors.
Regular gallery hours: Tue – Sat 10 – 4:30 pm.
812- 881-6475.
The Shircliff Gallery, First and Harrison Streets, will be showing photographs by Mitch Eckert and Susan Moore through December 1. A closing reception for the exhibition will take place Friday, December 1 at noon in the Shircliff Gallery.
Mitch Eckert, an artist and educator, works in sculpture, encaustics, collage and assemblage and all forms of photography. He teaches at the University of Louisville. He is a keen traveler, hiker and meditator. His photography is inspired by travel destinations including gardens, art museums and galleries, natural history museums and strange and curious collections. His work has been featured in hundreds of exhibitions and can be found in museum collections as well as textbooks and journals.
Originally from Chicago, landscape photographer Susan L. Moore has made photographs at sites throughout the United States and Europe. She earned a BA from Columbia College in Chicago, an MA in Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and MFA in Photography from Washington University School of Art in St. Louis, Missouri.
Moore selects varied processes and cameras to produce her work, creating contemporary landscape images that offer unique points of view. These range from large color photographs of rural Indiana landscapes to gelatin silver prints of major cities in Europe. Her work has been widely exhibited, both nationally and internationally.
Moore is currently Professor of Photography at Indiana University South Bend, where she also serves as Chair of the Fine Arts Department.
Regular gallery hours: weekdays 9 am – 6 pm; the gallery will be open until 6 pm on First Friday November 3. 812-888-4316
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