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