Drawn From Nature

It drives me nuts to walk into the opening reception of an art show and see half of the pieces hanging cockeyed on the walls. It requires tremendous self control to keep myself from going around and straightening all of the art work. This was the case at the recent "Drawn from Nature" art show at the John James Audubon Nature Center at Mill Grove, in Audubon, Pa.  Simply too many pieces hanging haphazardly from typical art show partitions, added with terrible lighting in an otherwise gorgeous old barn, made for a show that was difficult to find the gems. Lots of generic work that you would expect to see at a local nature center... birds and bunnies and such, and the unfortunate discovery of appropriated art (see previous post), but also a few really strong standout works, including Rona Cordish Satten's etchings Return to Origin and Opening , Margorie Pollack's  photograph Two Billies, and Lee Muslin's photograph over acrylic paint On The Lookout. 


Photography prizes were awarded as follows...

Michael Ticcino  "A Barn In Winter"
1st Place Photography

Peggy Hartzell  "Great Oak, St Peter's Road"
2nd Place Photography

Denise Romano Bright  "Trees & Ferns"
3rd Place Photography

Other work I found interesting was Peggy Hartzell's second piece in the show Audubon's Woods, in which she framed a photograph in a deep shadow box and included real leaves inside the frame.

Peggy Hartzell  "Audubon's Woods"

And Jon Goldberg's glass sculpture was a pleasant surprise to find. Goldberg owns East Falls Glass Studio and Philadelphia and several years ago I took a beginner glass blowing class there. Jon is a great instructor as well as accomplished artist. He had two pieces in the show, Optical Study- Lightning and Raindrop Sculpture

Jon Goldberg  "Optical Study- Lightning"

And finally Gwyn Michael's digital collage Biding Her Time, which won the Audubon Nature Award. Gwyn does environmental based work and is a highly talented digital artist. Check out her web site, as well as her Kickstarter project, Journey to Confluence, in which she is trying to raise funds for an artistic endeavor in collaboration with the Portland based Confluence Project

Gwyn Michael  "Biding Her Time"
Audubon Nature Award