Louise Kalin's Solo Show & The New Voices Exhibit at Longyear Gallery

By Jenny Neal

MARGARETVILLE — Last Saturday, October 18 saw the opening reception of Louise Kalin’s Solo Show “First Impressions Second Thoughts”, and The New Voices Exhibit, at the Longyear Gallery. Also on show was a small show of the works of members of the gallery.

Louise Kalin grew up in the Catskills until the age of nine when her family moved to Cape Cod, where “the ocean, salt water, sand and pine woods became my home. My visual world changed, and New England aesthetics took hold”. Her work evokes the natural world in dreamlike renderings, like so many artists here in these mountains.

This latest body of work on show at the Longyear is described as a survey of her experimental print works. The exhibition brings together a selection of prints that “explore process, layering, and reinterpretation, offering a fresh perspective on the possibilities of printmaking”.

Louise has been making art since she was “very little”. Her mother was an art teacher in Roxbury and then she was the art teacher for all of Gilboa. When the family moved to Cape Cod, her mother became the art teacher for five towns, “so I always had paper and crayons and things. It was just part of everyday life” and art has been a part of her everyday life since. She has been an arts administrator, ran a gallery, was a graphic designer and worked in publication design. She has renovated and restored three houses.

When asked if she thinks the world would be a better place if everybody created a little bit of art every week, she replies: “much”.

Of the Catskills, she states: “my Catskills childhood nurtured me in a reverence for nature and the environment. The layers, the patterns and colors of my surroundings are embedded in my prints, drawings and sculptures”.

The four “new voices” were Cena Pohl Crane, GG Stankiewicz, Jennifer Lord Rhodes and Jerry Gallo who together presented a dynamic body of work that was a riot of vivid color.

Cena Pohl Crane just recently moved her art studio to the Commons Building. She is now upstairs on the second floor and was showing four large pieces. Cena cites some of her influences being the German expressionists: “Nolde, Kirchner, Der Blaue Reiter, those guys, but I’ve always really had a love for Egon Schiele. The way his figures are so emotive”.

Cena’s figures are definitely emotive. In her depictions of women, it’s their poses that stand out, and the color that swirls around them like gauze. Her nudes seem to glow, radiating from the canvas. Cena was also influenced early on by a semester in Florence as an art student, and would spend whole days in the Uffizi Gallery with her sketch pad, developing a passion for Caravaggio and other renaissance painters. The dramatic German and Italian influences merge in her paintings.

GG Stankiewicz presented abstract pieces inspired by nature, textured and woven like plant matter, in stark contrast to Jennifer Lord Rhodes’ digital symbols. Jennifer is inspired by architecture, data points, digitization, psychological noise, stillness and the meditational states found in repetition and labor”.

Adding a dash of playfulness in the room was a large abstract piece by Jerry Gallo, serving to prove that art can make you smile as well as think. Jerry’s piece looked like a rendering of a small colorful painting floating along in a sea of blueness that was maybe a surreal rendering of space or the ocean - for sure a delight to behold.

This new voices exhibit was “a bit of a one-off” according to organizer Mary McFerran, who put the show together with Rick Mills and Sheila McManus. Mary says, “the membership of the gallery thought of the idea to host non-members as a way to broaden our audience and we are hoping it will open dialogue for interest by potential new members”.

“First Impressions Second Thoughts” by Louise Kalin, and the New Voices Exhibit will be on show until November 16, 2025. Longyear Gallery, The Commons Building, 785 Main Street, Margaretville, NY. longyeargallery.org. 845-586-3270. Hours of opening: Friday, Saturday, Sunday 11am-4pm.