A quick look at the front windows
Corner Gallery Ukiah
March
2020
Reception 5pm to 8pm
on First Friday Art Walk
March 6th, 2020
Featured Artists
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Adele Pruitt's students
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Polly Palecek
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ACU "Artist in Residence" Michael James
Adele Pruitt
and her students
Adele's students include
Polly Palecek, Irene Mc Farland,
Elaine Richard, Kathleen Gordon-Burke, Ginger O’Shea, Kathlene Kephart,
Jim Denham, Pat Elliott, Cheri Costello,
Marilynn Mc Grew, Jeanette Carson,
Gina Greco, Rebecca Bordedix,
Lynn Gulyash,
Tom Parkinson, and Gay Tow.
A little more about Adelle.
Adele has been teaching art longer than most of us have been alive and she’s been creating art even far longer as she approaches her 98th birthday without any sign of slowing down. Adele’s studio reveals her many commitments to the arts in her own abundant body of work, the work of her students, far too many frames to count, art supplies spilling out of shelves and boxes, paint stained easels, and art books piled on bookshelves. While it is impossible to categorize Adele Pruitt’s paintings, she uses a variety of media…oils, watercolor, egg tempera, encaustic and batik, and her works include landscapes, mostly of Mendocino County, a variety of portraits, and bold abstracts. Though her impressionistic landscapes are perhaps her most popular, her work has touched on a wide range including portraiture, abstracts, trompe l’oile, icons, and plein aire painting.
After Adele received a Masters Degree in Art Education in 1961 from the University of the Pacific she spent many years in the public school systems in California before she started her own gallery and studio. There she incorporated painting, teaching and fine art restoration having learned art conservation under the tutelage of Bill Haney, founder of the Academy of Art Conservation and Science. As one of only a handful of freelance art restorers in the US, she has amassed a lifetime of expertise restoring, in some cases, a treasured family painting and in other cases, museum-quality works of art. Adele offers a variety of learning experiences. She teaches beginning to advanced oil painting during which she offers many styles of painting and color theory, a skill that few instructors currently can match, as she can teach everything from old masters to abstracts, portraits to icons, realistic color to arbitrary color. While most of her current painting students are local, Adele’s restoration students and restoration clients are from all over the country. Adele always has more on her “palette” than humanly possible to accomplish but she always does. Her deep appreciation and respect for her students, her response to her Muse who guides her in her own painting and her commitment to preserving works of art, both great and small, these qualities define a true artist who never stops learning and is always seeking to bring inner visions to life. Adele’s greatest work of art is perhaps herself as she embodies her many, many years of studying, teaching, experimenting, restoring, and producing fine art.
She truly is one of Ukiah’s local treasures.
POLLY PALECEK
My artist endeavors began about 70 years ago when my mother gave me a pencil and scratch pad to keep me quiet during church…now many years later art still engages me profoundly. Retirement gives me the time and peace of mind to pursue what I still love doing…now in the form of oil painting. Almost immediately upon retiring I was offered a free beginning painting class with Adele Pruitt…I‘m still painting with her ten years later! Painting allows me the creative outlet to show my appreciation for my environment and the people around me. I’ve learned and use the techniques of Impressionism, Old Masters, Mixed Media, Direct Painting and I am now attempting to flatten forms as in the style of Matisse or David Hockney.
My work has been exhibited locally, including
but not limited to, Grace Hudson Museum, Corner Gallery, Mendocino College Gallery, Healdsburg Art Gallery, and many local businesses. I love painting in class studios as
I enjoy the camaraderie and influence
of not only the instructor
but also especially the other students.
I enjoy seeing where my muse
will take me next.
“Michael James: The Artist is Working”
Art Center Ukiah will host opening reception Friday March 6th from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm for the newly developed “Artist in Residence” program. Michael James a local street artist will set up an open studio with mural canvases for the month of March. Community and local students will have the opportunity to see an artist develop new works, discuss his processes and thoughts. Additionally there will be an active participation aspect where visitors may help paint one of the large-scale works as part of his “Be My Assistant” undertaking.
Michael James was born in Southampton, New York. He studied figurative painting art at Universidad Catolica De Chile School of Art in Santiago, Chile. He received his Bachelor of Science and MBA at California Coast University, and post graduate work in humanities and business at Harvard University/Harvard University Extension. His first exhibit was at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York. Other exhibits include galleries in Riverhead, NY, Santiago and La Serena, Chile and numerous galleries in the United States. His commissioned murals are still on display at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in 29 Palms, California. He currently lives and works in Southern and Northern California.
For complete “The Artist is Working” open studio days and hours please contact
Corner Gallery Ukiah at 462-1400 or visit cornergallleryukiah.com
“Artist in Resident” Open Studio is made possible
by support from Sherwood Valley Casino; Imagine This, Michael’s and Art Center Ukiah.
Michael James Artist Statement
“Why do people think artists are special? It's just another job.” (Andy Warhol)
Jeff Koons once said "The job of the artist is to make a gesture and really show people what their potential is. It's not about the object, and it's not about the image; it's about the viewer. That's where the art happens", and that is what we hope to accomplish here for my residency; "The Artist is Working". Artists' residencies provide dedicated time and space for creative work. At the Arts Center Ukiah, I am looking for a community of local artists in which to work and be supported in the creation of my new art. This residency, the first of its kind in Ukiah, CA, will be unique as it will not only give the public at large the opportunity to see my process and share ideas,
it will also allow them to "Be My Assistant" if they so choose to do so, because after all,
art is hard work and I can use all the help I can get.
I am a populist. I look for the beauty of others while embracing the diversity of our world, even if that means I have to lose some notion of control. I want to explore the aesthetic mood of this generation by placing my work in relationship with one another, allowing the tensions between the pieces to define the exhibition space, engaging with and displaying the process of production of the artwork as much as its final results. In an age of Instagram and Facebook, Snapchat and filtered selfies, where does the artist with brush, paint and canvas find their place? How does the newly minted artist compete in a world where studios are more factories filled with paid assistants and work is "digitally enhanced"? Thus, one of the works that we will be developed during the residency will have audience participation. A combination of style and stroke(s).
A free and radical exploration that will depend on collaboration for its ultimate success or failure.