Written by Colin Secore
Photography by Colin Secore
Being a member of PUGG means that I have come to meet many artists. It’s an inevitable part of the job and the connections are invaluable. Throughout June, I visited four galleries, three of them right here in Kingston, which were showcasing the art of artists I had come to know through PUGG. It’s fascinating to see the kind of art your peers make, like seeing a portion of their imagination.
The first gallery I went to was just a room away from our base of operations, the D.R.A.W.-supported exhibition in Energy Square. It featured the work of Lillian Nelson and Richie Green, who are a couple living in the building. Lillian frequents the D.R.A.W. space to create artworks and take part in classes. Each side of the room showcased art from each artist. Richie creates dreamy portrayals of familiar Kingston locations. Reminiscent of the Impressionist work of Claude Monet, his work utilizes careful and visible brushstrokes. The river and sky are cool blues and the foliage is in bluish greens. The bricks of buildings are made of clay browns and yellow buildings are made with a hazy hue.
On the opposite wall are Lillian’s works, which are primarily woven. Each square is as fluffy as it is expertly crafted. Each one has a brilliant color scheme that varies between whimsically bright, playfully dark, or a mixture between the two. Despite the variations, I get consistently positive vibes from all of them. Lillian has also put up her work in other media, including a series of boat drawings in marker. Brightly colored and framed in the white of the page, they feel nostalgic in nature. She made sculptures as well. Two sculptures are made of cardboard and yarn, forming mysterious geometric shapes. Another two are made from strips of wood, portraying a couple of smiling characters. The two pairs of sculpture contrast on their own, but next to the woven works, they indicate a solid range of skill.
The next gallery I visited was the Unison Arts Center tucked away in the woods of New Paltz. The artist they spotlighted was Beth Humphrey, who is one of the leading people of the PUGG program. The show was called “Echoes” and exhibited Beth’s intent to create small instances of energy and put them out into the world to see what is received back. The colors she used are vibrant but feel natural which perfectly suits what feel like abstracted natural processes. I saw bright sludge, a sunset in streamers, monochrome rainbows, a web of ink, a machine made of bubbles, and sources of light casting shadows. It might be hard to visualize, but Beth has captured these abstract phenomena. Getting up close to these pieces was refreshing and gave me a new perspective on viewing the natural world.
After that, I traveled to the Cornell Creative Arts Center to see the Senior Exhibition that was on display. My friend and fellow PUGG member Vera Wilde was among the artists. Her portion of the show consisted of a short series called “True Colors” in which she composed portraits of friends and family with specific palettes of two to three colors to show how she feels about them. She encouraged viewers to interpret the colors their own way. I personally didn’t receive any negative feelings from the portraits. I saw warm active love and cool passive love, as well as mixtures of the two for a couple people. I sensed a level of nuance to each color choice. Beyond color, the portraits themselves were drawn skillfully, with careful attention to the expression of their faces. The light reflections added to their eyes was a detail that gave these works a lot of life.
The final gallery I went to was the West Strand Gallery, featuring a collaborative show between five artists called “Rhapsody in Nature.” Marielena Ferrer was one of them, someone I’ve worked with multiple times through the D.R.A.W. Her piece in the show is one I’ve interacted with before, as PUGG was a part of its creation. You can read more about that in Greg’s blog post, Broken Monarchs: Using art to start a conversation. We were instructed to rip the butterflies out of the paper they were printed on as a symbolic parallel to the children ripped from their families at the Mexican border under the Trump Administration. Marielena’s “Broken Monarchs” was a beautiful, colorful representation of migrating monarch butterflies sitting on a tree in one great big group, representing the 4,300 children that were removed from their families. It is difficult to visualize so many children, but Marielena has made that scope impossible to ignore, with one butterfly for each child. The size of the project is scary and even daunting, but a powerful reminder of a corrupt system that has permanently scarred thousands of helpless children.
It is wonderful to see such so many works of art locally and from such a wide range of ages. Kingston’s art-friendly environment is clear, and the D.R.A.W. and the Midtown Arts District play a major part in bringing these artists up into the spotlight. PUGG has allowed me to not just know who the artists are, but to get the chance to work with them as well. It’s difficult to express how inspiring it’s been, but I’ll say that I have boundless gratitude for PUGG and the connections I have made.
