Lawrenceville network artists will be ‘seeing red’ on 2nd Saturday

BY PAT SUMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Maybe Valentine's day comes in February to take people's minds off snow and ice and cold, prompting them to think instead of chocolate and flowers and chocolate and love and chocolate. What a sweet idea.

Add fine art to the mix — artists' creations that people can enjoy while eating chocolate — and you've really got something rich. And what you've got, if you're lucky, is this weekend's 2nd Saturday artists reception at the gallery of the Lawrenceville Main Street Artists Network.

They may be easel-deep in snow, but the 28 artist members of the cooperative gallery will be "Seeing Red," at least metaphorically, on Saturday from 4-7 p.m. Their four-room gallery on Main St. features art and gifts in virtually all mediums — paintings to jewelry, ceramics to photography, fiber art to sculpture.

While work by all members will be on view, that by five artists will be featured this month.

Photographer Gerry Sternberg favors travel and landscape images. He says, "Some of my photographs are digital scans of slides and negatives, but most are digital images fine tuned with a computer and Photoshop. Occasionally, I'll manipulate an image extremely, creating what would accurately be described as digital art."

Rummaging in his basement one day, Bill McCarroll unearthed his father's old paint box and decided to try watercolors. He says the find was "serendipitous," but that word also describes his paintings since then. He enjoys doing landscapes based on local scenes, the Delaware Bay and its marshes and subjects drawn from family travels, particularly Normandy, France.

Carine Fram expanded her home studio as she learned the various steps in bead making and glass fusing so she now has a self-contained place to develop her techniques and style. She points out that since "no two pieces are alike in the world of glass fusing, each is a unique and custom-made product." Her oeuvre includes tiles, bowls, platters and dishes.

Painter and graphic designer Christina Peckham says she has "always enjoyed interpreting nature by blending the simplicity of design with the intensity of color that painting allows." Peckham specializes in abstract florals and landscapes that have been described as "vibrant and rich."

For Michelle Rosenthal, it's the "happy accidents" and open-ended quality of the images that occur that make her a happy watercolor painter. Her images, typically of seasonal changes, result from the blending of what she wants the paint to do with what the paint itself insists on doing, she feels. Paper collage with watercolor is her current interest.

Starting this month, art on view at the gallery will also include the work of Mary Waltham, a new member. She grew up on a farm in a small village in Dorset, England, a rural county immortalized by Thomas Hardy; her paintings often convey the people and the places of the countryside.

Now in its second year, the network also offers classes and workshops for children and adults. (Details on its website.)

Art and chocolate: perfect together. Spend part of the romantic Valentine's weekend "Seeing Red" at the gallery's 2nd Saturday reception.

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Lawrenceville Main Street Artists Network Gallery. 2683 Main Street at Gordon Ave., Lawrenceville, NJ 08648.

Second Saturday artists reception "Seeing Red," February 12, 2011, 4-7 p.m.

Phone: 609-512-1359; www.lmsartistsnetwork.com; This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Gallery and gift shop hours: Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Transplanted artist helps grow Lawrenceville's art scene, March 8, 2010.

New artist-members to be featured at Lawrenceville gallery, April 6, 2010.

N.J. gallery offers value-added artists reception, May 2, 2010

In Lawrenceville, it's art that's ‘bustin' out all over,' June 7, 2010

Lawrenceville galley show takes viewers "Down the Shore, July 5, 2010