Thank you all!

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Holiday Open House last night! It was so fun to have all the artists and their families, friends and admirers here along with the friends, families and admirers of the Nevin Kelly Gallery. Many small works found their homes last night including my favorite Bocianowska print "Forest," which went home with gallery artist and graphic designer Mary Beth Ramsey. I couldn't think of a better home for it.
Here's a picture of Nevin with Pauline (proud new owner of a Huculak landscape) admiring a Lubomir Tomaszewski (Loob-O-meer Tome-ah-shev-ski) sculpture with a Sondra Arkin canvas in the background.
The lovely and talented Molly Brose poses in front of one of her paintings.
Sondra Arkin, Ellyn Weiss and Melissa P. Hackmann chat in front of works by Ellyn, Molly Brose, and Robert Saunders.

Thanks to Molly's mother Alexis for taking pictures for me!

They're here!

The five etchings by Elzbieta Bocianowska (Polish lesson #2: Elz-bee-etta Boch-ee-nove-ska) have arrived in the gallery and will be on the wall before I leave this evening. Promise! Three of the prints pictured above. You can view one other here. The fifth is a surprise that you'll have to come in to see. I recommend coming by the gallery for the Holiday Open House tomorrow, Saturday, between 4:00 and 7:00 pm. There will be cookies and cider and wine and other goodies and lots of perfect presents. We'll even wrap them for you!

Attainable Art

I know I promised installation shots of the Attainable Art show yesterday, but, well, it's still a bit messy in the gallery and there's still a blank wall waiting for some Polish prints that remain at the framer (they'll be up tomorrow). So in lieu of a shot of the gallery (which you will all see on Saturday at the Holiday Open House from 4-7pm anyways), I'm putting up some images of works included in the show. Above is a watercolor by Molly Brose entitled "Cold Outside." When I visited Molly's studio on Monday to see what works she might have for this show I particularly admired a smaller painting of a corkscrew that she had done as a thank you gift for a friend. That night she stayed up until 5am painting a new, larger corkscrew for my show! The result is absolutely beautiful and would make a perfect gift for a wine lover or fabulous host/hostess.
"Still Life with Four Objects" by Lukasz Huculak, gouache on paper. I don't speak Polish, but when I started at the gallery Nevin gave me a handy Polish pronunciation chart. I will post that in another entry. Let's just start with this artist. Lukasz is pronounced "woo-kush" with a short "U" sound on the second syllable. Huculak is pronounced "hoot-sue-luck." Say it with me now, Woo-kush Hoot-sue-luck. Lukasz Huculak. Good. Huculak uses gouache in a different manner from most, building it up and then scraping down - in some places scraping it down so far that he wears through the paper. Those dots and splotches on the blue background are holes in the paper.

Please Join Us:

HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE
Saturday, December 9th, 4 - 7 pm

Nevin Kelly Gallery | 1517 U Street NW | Washington DC

Featuring the exhibition:

ATTAINABLE ART: WORKS UNDER $1200
Smaller works
by Nevin Kelly Gallery artists
Nevin Kelly Gallery | 1517 U Street NW | Washington DC
December 7 - 31, 2006

This show, curated by yours truly, will feature small work by many of the Nevin Kelly Gallery's artists. We will also be introducing the work of Molly Brose and Melissa P. Hackmann. We're so excited to be showing these ladies' work! I'm hanging the show today and will post many more pictures shortly.

The above image is an etching/aquatint by Elzbieta Bocianowska. It will be framed and available in the show. Unfortunately our overworked framer hasn't finished framing it yet, so if you come to the show before Friday expect one blank wall waiting for 4 lovely prints by Polish artists.

And we're back!

I just arrived back from a fantastic (and chilly!) Thanksgiving week up in Maine and I'm so glad to be back in the gallery with these warm, summery Eugene Healy paintings!

Sadly, they're only up through this Sunday at which point we'll be putting up Attainable Art, a small works show (think Christmas presents!) curated by yours truly and featuring the artists of the gallery. We'll have prints up by Polish artists Elzbieta Bocianowska, Renata Zolcinska and Maciej Deja. If all that is a mouthful for you, we'll also have new oil pastels and small encaustics from Sondra Arkin, oil bar works and a couple of fantastic new prints by Ellyn Weiss, mixed media assemblage boxes by Mary Beth Ramsey (whose new show Numerology is opening this weekend in Rehoboth), drawings by Robert Saunders, small acrylic paintings by Thomas Walsh, and much much more!

Up in the Back Room

Apologies for the sparseness of posts in the past couple weeks. My computer crashed and, guess what! I'm the IT department here at the gallery. Actually my partner Mark was very helpful in donating his time to help me get all my files back. If it weren't for him, every image of every work of art that's come through the gallery would have been lost in the internet ether. And he worked for cheeseburgers!

Anyways, now that (almost) everything is back in order, I wanted to post some shots of the work we're featuring in the back room for the month of November. The Healy takes up the front room and two of the walls in the back, but we also have up the work of New York watercolorist Gretchen Feldman and DC abstract artist Sondra Arkin. Please excuse the picture quality, Photoshop is one of the programs I have yet to re-install.

Today and Tomorrow: Midcity Artists Open Studios

This weekend is the Midcity Artists Open Studios event. The Nevin Kelly Gallery is an MCA supporting business and we will have work out by MCA members Sondra Arkin (whose studio isn't open this time around), Mary Beth Ramsey, and Mark Parascandola (whose open studio is around the corner from us at 2002 15th St.). Mary Beth's work can also be found at Bos|Scott on 1610 11th St. Click here for a map of participating studios and supporting businesses. Pictured is Sondra Arkin's triptych Orange Tide, encaustic on Dibond each panel 32"x23".

The Healys Have Arrived!

Gene Healy drove down from Connecticut this morning and arrived at the gallery at 2:30 this afternoon. His gallerist on Nantucket, Doerte Nuedert of the Art Cabinet Nantucket, arrived yesterday.

Here's a shot of the paintings being laid out around the room.

Nevin and Doerte Hang Granite Bay and Tuxis Island.

Nevin Hangs Point Lookout. (Also pictured: Sands Point and East Wharf)

In all there are 16 works by Gene Healy in the gallery. It looks absolutely beautiful.

Stop by the gallery (1517 U St. NW) Saturday night, 5-8 pm to see this gorgeuous work, meet Gene and Doerte, and have a glass of wine.

Bare Walls

The Weiss show came down earlier today and the Healy show goes up tomorrow, so in the meantime the gallery's walls are empty. It is very stark and gloomy with no color on the walls. I couldn't work in an environment without art.

During the opening of the City Hall art collection on Tuesday evening, people who worked in the building - guards, city council members, government employees - kept coming up to Sondra, the DCCAH staff and me and thanking us for filling the building with art. Mayor Anthony Williams remarked in his speech that with art on the walls, the building became more than just the place that housed the city government; it became the city government's home.

When I move into a new apartment, it never really becomes my home until I begin to hang art. And like many others, I spend more of my waking hours at work than at home. My office becomes my home away from home, which makes it all the more important that there be art on the walls. So I will put up with these bare walls until tomorrow, when some gorgeous new art comes in to brighten the place up.

A Summery Healy Painting to Brighten Our Fall

Eugene Healy just sent me this image of "Bar Beach," another work to be included in his November solo show at the gallery. Gene will drive down Friday morning from Connecticut, and we'll be hanging the show Friday afternoon. The opening reception is this Saturday from 5-8pm. Please come out and welcome Gene back to Washington for his first solo show in DC.