Art Exhibit Opening: REVERIE

The Chaffee Art Center, Your Center for Creativity, invites the community to the Opening Reception of our new Exhibit "REVERIE...featuring Edward Holland, Peter Wallis & Sage Tucker-Ketcham" on Friday, July 25th from 5pm to 7pm.  Stop by this free event and enjoy a glass of wine and nibbles while you explore our 6 galleries and unique nooks and crannies filled with art!  

About the artists:
 
Peter Wallis...begins each work by recalling the walks he’s taken at dusk, through his past and present neighborhoods. He collects ideas from the surrounding environment, looking for scenes that might typically go unnoticed. Wallis sketches and collages together these images, both real and imagined. He brings places from different locations and periods of time into the same space, creating an entirely new landscape. These sketches later serve as references when Wallis creates the final paintings in gouache and charcoal.  Wallis intends for this work to be thought-provoking. Each piece is built from fragments of memories or dreams that evoke feelings of nostalgia of an unfamiliar place. Many of the buildings present in his paintings no longer exist. Wallis’ paintings use a visual language of abandoned buildings, figurines, dancers, and skeletons to convey the feeling of being in a dream. The negative space left in many of his works provides room for the viewer to draw personal connections, allowing their own memories to contextualize the stories within each scene. He approaches each painting as if it were a scene from a play with no end, seeking to create a unique landscape, in which the mundane is sacred.
 
Sage Tucker-Ketcham...grew up in Vermont, Toronto, London, and the Washington DC area. Her adult life has been spent in Northern Vermont, Cape Cod and Maine. She received her BFA from Maine College of Art and her MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design.  The paintings of Sage Tucker-Ketcham investigate intentional and psychological relationships between color, form, and space. These paintings are process driven with an emphasis on composition and color theory. They are constructed layer by layer with attention to high contrast color combinations and the color palette is observationally inspired by interesting atmospheric moments. Shapes are painted repeatedly by the time a painting is complete, any given area may be repainted with a different color combination up to ten times until the right color combination clicks. Her subject matter currently centers around mountains, buildings, and shrubbery; together they form a relational narrative through strategic placements within the landscape. The goal is to develop an aesthetically accessible visual language that also activates a range of emotions. 
 
Edward Holland...artworks bring to life the full potential of collage as an aesthetic and conceptual device. Often combining mixed media such as oil paint, acrylic, graphite, and printed papers, his compositions are scaffolded by the linear geometry of zodiac constellations that provide a basic framework for each painting. Holland builds on this foundation with brushstrokes and collage, negotiating various elements on the picture plane to create unexpectedly moving juxtapositions.  For him, zodiac constellations––like art itself––represent an ancient way of storytelling and communicating universal myths about human nature and the world. His poetic works, reminiscent of Robert Rauschenberg’s North African colleges that also incorporate printed papers and maintain geometric structures, speak to Holland’s keen ability to bring together disparate elements into surprising and fresh configurations. Underpinning his practice is his belief “in the romance of painting and its ability to create meaning, whether directly or openly, empirically or emotionally.”  Influenced by the works of Manet, Joan Mitchell, Jasper Johns, and Sigmar Polke among others, he sees the process of building his compositions as a continual, intuitive dance. Holland mobilizes collage as a means of adding layers of content and imagery, and in the spirit of Hans Hofmann’s “push-pull” method, works to activate and organize the space of the collage by seeing what needs to come forward and what needs to be de-emphasized or pushed back into space. Always sourcing materials for his collages serendipitously, he allows collage materials to enter his life any which way, including materials sent by people he knows, materials he finds, or books on the street. The concrete materiality of collage fragments in his works are often marshaled in opposition to abstraction, which take the form of painterly strokes, soft washes, or untethered masses of color.

Also, on display and for sale are works by Chaffee artist members throughout the rest of the mansion and on the second floor, as well as in the Gallery Shoppe that is filled with handmade treasures and gift ideas for any occasion. We continue to showcase Vermont Samplers during the 2025 Vermont Sampler Driving Tour, so be sure to take time to experience the handiwork of schoolgirls from 1700-1800.  The VT Sampler Initiative, a 501-c-3 entity, in cooperation with the national Sampler Archive has been documenting Vermont 19th century schoolgirl samplers since November 2022. The story of our Revolutionary War generation having fought the war for our independence and then having relocated to Vermont to live their lives, is one that can be illustrated by studying the lives of their descendants.  The values, artistry and degrees of hardship and success of these families are often conveyed by the girls who produced these samplers. They are almost always the progeny – daughters and granddaughters - of the Revolutionary War generation – and their stories are many and unique! 
 
Plan to visit the Chaffee during open hours to experience the beauty of the 1890’s Queen Anne Victorian Mansion and the wonderful works of art throughout, plus our Gallery Shoppe that is filled with handmade treasures and gift ideas for any occasion! While here, picture your next event, bridal shower, wedding, meeting or retreat being held in our beautiful mansion, fondly known by its first owners as Sunny Gables.  Check out our website 
www.chaffeeartcenter.org and the Chaffee Art Center Facebook page for updates and classes/camps, call 802.775.0356 or stop into the Chaffee Art Center at 16 South Main Street in Rutland, VT.