Tinker at 80: Looking Back – Moving Ahead

Norm-Tinker-2012

Opens Friday October 5, 2012

Betts Gallery is excited to be hosting Norman Tinker’s exhibit Tinker at 80: Looking Back- Moving Ahead , a mini mini retrospective of his years as a sculptor. The opening reception is Friday October 5 from 5:30 pm to 8 pm. This body of work covers a span from 1957 through the present. Photographs of past work will accompany new collages and sculptures to bring us up Tinker’s present. During the past year, Tinker has been making drawings and collages using some older sculptures as models. This represents a coming together of two-dimensional work with three-dimensional ideas.

Norman Tinker explains “When I turned 79 and began my 80th year last October, I began a self-indulgent process of thinking about what I would like to do to celebrate my 80th birthday. One’s 80th is a real milestone for most people, and should be for me. I soon found myself thinking about a show, something different than a normal show of just recent work.” What resulted is this mini retrospective.

Narratives Photography Exhibit

Narratives-poster

Betts Gallery at The Belfast Framer is pleased to announce the opening of it’s latest exhibit, Narratives, featuring the Maine Photo Alliance. Reception for the artists will occur during the Friday Night Art Walk, September 7, 2012 from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m.

Maine Photo Alliance is a group of six photographers who live in Mid-coast Maine. Founded in 2009, MPA seeks to create an environment which nurtures and expands their art as well as promote fine art photography in the community.

Narratives, visual short stories, was a challenging collaborative project whereby each photographer in the group began a visual narrative, and sent that image along to the next assigned photographer, who would in turn add to the visual short story. The end result was six separate narratives, each having six separate images. Included in this exhibit, each of the six artists of MPA have individual new photography work displayed in the gallery.

Members of MPA include Joseph Corrado, well-known on the Eastern seaboard for his exquisite food photography, and can be seen on covers of major food magazines; Susan Davens, an expert in historic photography, with her own eye for taking arresting landscapes and cityscapes; Susan Guthrie, whose work has been included in many juried shows in the area, including the recent photography retrospective at the Center for Maine Contemporary Arts; Terry Hire, a certified interior designer and perennial gardener whose colorful photography presents stunning surface patterns, textures and abstractions; Ann Krumrein, an artist immersed in fine art photography, has been featured in Black & White and Color photography magazines; and, Jim Nickelson, a professional fine art photographer, and digital printer, is an emerging regional artist whose numerous recent credits include exhibit at Harvard and Bates.

Maine Photo Alliance has a website www.mainephotoalliance.org which chronicles their creative growth, and seeks to encourage other artists throughout Maine. Links to individual websites are listed as well as informative photography information.

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Peg Worth

"Perkins Road", a pastel by Peg Worth

“Perkins Road”, a pastel by Peg Worth

Betts Gallery at The Belfast Framer is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of Peg Worth’s new work in pastel, running through July 28, 2012.The opening reception is Friday July 6 from 5:30 pm -8pm.

Working in pastel represents a new direction in Worth’s work. As she explains, “My thoughts and observations made the subjects have new touches of light and new ways to shape the forms so different than the control of the oil brush. There is a mystical magic to pastel.”

Betsy Birge of Liberty has been invited by Worth to show one of her pastels in the exhbit.

Karen MacDonald

"Red Cross", by Karen MacDonald

“Red Cross”, by Karen MacDonald

All That We Have
August 3 through September 1, 2012
Opening reception for the artist on Friday August 3 from 5:30 pm to 8pm.

Betts Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibit of new work by Karen MacDonald titled All That We Have. In the past few years, MacDonald has had many friends and family face illness and death. This exhibit is an immediate response to the different ways of living and dying. In the words of the artist, this work “has inevitably been accompanied by a fair amount of existential reflection and contemplation of loss, acceptance, and making something with what you’ve got”. All That We Have is a project in mixed media which includes an installation in the gallery’s front window.

MacDonald grew up on Mount Desert Island. She was introduced to the letterpress and worked as a letterpress compositor and printer in high school and continued throughout her college years. She studied art at Wesleyan University. Along the way her creative pursuits included graphic design, printmaking, new product design and photography. Presently her work encompasses collage, assemblage and installation.

Still Life Exhibit

Still_Life_Poster_2012

Betts Gallery at The Belfast Framer will be hosting its kickoff exhibit of the 2012 season on June 1. Still Life is an exhibit of four artists: Stephanie Bartron-Miscione, Kerstin Engman, Kathleen Mack and Dina Petrillo. Their interpretation of the words “still lIfe” ranges from Images of beautiful eggs to a water faucet and much more. The work encompasses many individual unique styles.

Dina Petrillo

About Petrillo’s work poet Rick Benjamin writes, “Dina creates new pedagogies, new processes and forms that suit and accommodate her impulses and predilections as an artist-thinker. She consistently puts her hands in the earth – in the muck and the mire of animals, plants, minerals – in order to develop practices that are fully in touch and alive with the rest of the sentient world.”

Stephanie Bartron-Miscione

Bartron-Miscione says “I want my subjects to come alive with rich detail, layers of color that glow against contrasting values and textures, and more information than a single light source can provide”.

Kerstin Engman

Engman has been painting for the past decade, although her artistic focus for 25 years was as a sculptor. She has painted the Maine landscape and worked from what she defines as “the simplest of still lifes”. Her work is an expression of color and pattern in a balance that connects to daily routines and events.

Kathleen Mack

Mack, a self-taught artist, began her professional painting career in 1993. She works in oil and water media. Her primary interest is in the human form, alone and in relationship to other figures and surroundings. “The gesture is all important”.

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Mirrors on sale for Mother’s Day

How about a gift certificate from The Belfast Framer? a great gift for Mother’s Day! Happy Mother’s Day to all.