GREENVILLE – The Clark Gallery at Historic Bear’s Mill will host a display of paintings by Paula J. Dalton which explore land and sky through geometry as well as the work of Collette Fortin and Berry Davis who create solid glass sculptures with primarily oceanic themes at the upcoming “Art At the Mill” exhibit opening Friday, June 25 with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The artists will share information about their work, methods, and inspiration at 7 p.m. The exhibit will continue through Sunday, July 25; “Art at the Mill,” curated by Jan Roestamadji and Julie Clark, is free and open to the public.
According to Ms. Clark, Indiana-based artist Paula J. Dalton wants the viewer to look through her painting as if it were a window into nature, and respond to the subject matter. “Her modernist perspective on the beauty surrounding us will enhance our rustic setting, while at the same time the work will be enhanced by the natural surroundings,” Ms. Clark explained. Ms. Roestamadji states that the stunning pieces created at Neptune Hot Glass by Collette Fortin and Berry David are reminders of the quickly vanishing beauty of our planet’s oceans. “Their work can use gemstones and precious metals to create beautiful pieces that will elevate any decor, regardless of the architectural style or decorative period in which it appears; I am sure that visitors to the exhibit will find something wonderful to take home with them to treasure,” she stated.
Neptune Hot Glass, established in 1999 in Celina, Ohio, is well known across the country, having won awards in art shows throughout the Midwest and beyond. Founded by Berry Davis, the work produced at Neptune is a reminder of the vanishing beauty of our planet’s oceans. Berry, always having held a reverence for nature and its creations, developed deep appreciation for the beauty of the reef while living in the Caribbean, and began focusing on the re-creation of corals and sea creatures that he had observed while diving. Berry’s wife, Collette Fortin who earned her B.F.A. in both metals and fashion design, joined the firm in 2005, adding her creative skills to produce stunning pieces that incorporate gold, platinum, silver, meteorite fragments, diamonds, rubies, and sapphires into their work. To create their striking Coral Heads, Lagoons, and Treasure Windows, the artists first assemble items to be encased in high quality molten glass; next, the pieces are shaped by hand with graphite smoothing pads, then cooled before the final cutting and polishing using high-speed diamond tools, resulting in fascinating mirrored images captured deep within each piece.
Paula J. Dalton was born in Chicago to a mother who was a fiber artisan and a professional photographer father who worked for Eastman Kodak; the painter says that experiencing her dad’s technical journals and spending time in her mom’s sewing room with all its colorful fabrics encouraged early interest in not only form, pattern, and color, but also in mathematics. A graduate of Indiana University John Herron School of Art, Dalton begins each painting with a pattern that is then layered with glazes which are allowed to stain the canvas before being gently removed. Her labor-intensive process eventually hides the work’s undergirding geometry, upon which the lattice is revived and layering continued “until nature has revealed itself.” Dalton says that all of her images begin with the Lord’s complex creation. “Bouquets of flowers, mounds of leaves, rocks, and beams of light don’t exist on their own—they are layered and changed by the wind, rain, sun and seasons,” she explains. “Everywhere in nature these layers and changes become patterns that I see; where there are three-dimensional forms in nature’s layers, I use pattern, paint, and patience to translate them into two,” she concludes.
The current Clark Gallery exhibit of enticing landscapes by Cincinnati-based painter Stacie Seuberling and the whimsical nature-infused sculptures of her sister Stephanie Skurow will continue through Sunday, June 20. The Clark Gallery and the Mill Shop are operated by Friends of Bear’s Mill, which has become the newest addition to Darke County Park District. Bear’s Mill is located at 6450 Arcanum-Bear’s Mill Road, about 5 miles east of Greenville. “Art At the Mill” is funded in part by a grant from Darke County Endowment for the Arts, and can be viewed during regular Mill store hours, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. For more information, contact Bear’s Mill at 937-548-5112 or www.bearsmill.org.