Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Two Art Exhibits by Renee Manford

On one of our many outings to the Saturday market I stopped on the way to the car at the Karin Clarke Gallery just through the alley between W. Park Street and Willamette Blvd. The gallery spokesperson was Renee Manford. She was kind enough to show us the art in the gallery and during the conversation I gave her a business card with my web page address and email.

Well last month I got an email from Renee about two shows she was having of her own work at two galleries in Springfield. Being the organized person that I am I went to the gallery last Sunday.

There was a great mural on the wall of the Emerald Art Center so I took a couple of pictures.

It is a huge mural and depicted the Native American Tribes of Oregon.


On the west side of 5th street was another great mural.


Then I saw the sign in the window - yes this was the right place.


This was the Emerald Art Center. One problem though - Closed on Sunday!!!


I did take this picture through the window. Last week I got an e-mail from Renee asking if I had made it to the show and I had to tell her how goofy I was going on Sunday. She was kind enough to offer to meet me there and guide me through the images in the show today at 11:00 am.


Her art wonderful full of colors shapes and images and dreams. The display was very well done and arranged to show the diversity of her skills and the blending of nature with beauty.


The frames are wonderfully made, she told me, by a woodworker at the Senior Center of Springfield and they are a work of art themselves.


The nice thing about having Renee there was I was able to get the story behind the images. One is at Dorris Ranch a Springfield area "open" Filbert Farm/Ranch. Another image was a swimming hole one of her favorite places to swim. I was also able to ask tons of questions about style and technique.


We then went to the Island Park Gallery at the Adult Activity Center. Renee and Susan Lowdermilk were having a show titled "The Printmaker's Perspective." Above you can see a detail section of the next image of a corn field.


I am amazed the, what seem to be random, tracings on this print when seen as a whole make a brilliantly organized image of a field of corn complete with sunflowers and watermelons.


Renee did pose next to two of my favorite images both rural and on one of my favorite local roads and farm country that's breathtaking.

One more shot of a wonderful artist and art guide. Renee Manford is featured on my "Art for the Soul" Blog right now. Renee also has her own blog at http://manfordrj.wordpress.com/ so to get a better view of her work and for more information visit her site. Also make sure you click on the "View All Images" tab beneath the slide show for a wonderfully well done view of all the images in both of these shows plus other images. It's a great blog and I'm glad I went back to explore it further.


Scrabble Score ~ Scrabble Queen 324 - The contender 325

Quote of the Day ~
"My love of fine art increased - the more of it I saw, the more of it I wanted to see." ~ Paul Getty - His personal fortune was estimated as about £1.6 billion.




©Paul Viel

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Merry Christmas, and I hope you have a great year ahead.

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©Paul Viel