Arts for Act: "Artists with Heart" Fundraiser at ACT Gallery Ope...

Arts for Act: "Artists with Heart" Fundraiser at ACT Gallery Ope...: Artists with Heart! JoAnn Bedient - Raku Heart Shoe A Group Exhibit raising money fond ACT Gallery A call to local artists was se...

"Artists with Heart" Fundraiser at ACT Gallery Opens February 1

Artists with Heart!

JoAnn Bedient - Raku Heart Shoe

A Group Exhibit raising money fond ACT Gallery
A call to local artists was sent in late December asking for donations of art to help raise money for ACT Gallery and ACT.   The donated art could be no larger than 12” X 12” and must have at least one heart or an endearment incorporated into the created piece.  The money generated from the sell of these pieces would benefit ACT and ACT Gallery.  ACT Gallery is a project of Abuse Counseling and Treatment, Inc., which has two shelters in Lee County, supporting and housing the victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, sexual assault and their children.  ACT Gallery helps generate income for ACT.  It has been in existence for 10 years in downtown Fort Myers. Our local artists have really given us a lot of their heart.  So far 29 artists have paid it forward and have completed and delivered over 45 pieces of heartfelt works!  Exhibiting artists are Cheryl Fausel, Honey Costa, Paula Eckerty, Kim Roenigk, JoAnne Bedient, Linda Benson, Claudia Goode, Peg Cullen, Barb Mintz, Vicki Baker, Karen Jarsted, Beth Ivens, Pat Cleveland, Katherine Boren, the artist Zaki, Helen Andrejev, Scott Guelcher, Dale Weber, Eileen McGrath, Mary Widner, Scott Guelcher, Dale Weber, Eileen McGrath, Annette, Michelle Rothaker, Lisa Freidus, Terry Gardiner, Marilyn Hedlund, George F. Draper Harris, Marie Cahill and Andrew Miller.  Come down, see what each artist created with love and buy a piece of art for your Valentine!  Let’s all pay it forward!!          

Art by Kids with Cancer at ACT Gallery opens February First

Art by Kids with Cancer a project of the Young Arts Awards opens at Arts for ACT Gallery on February 1, 2013.  Come in and make a difference by buying a piece of art by Kids with Cancer!

 

The Young Artists Awards 'Art by Kids with Cancer' project donates and delivers art supplies for use by pediatric oncology patients throughout the year in conjunction with the Child Life Specialists at the Pediatric Oncology/Hematology program at the Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida, while also showcasing the artwork of children with cancer.  They provide monetary assistance to local families in crisis facing the financial challenges of childhood, assisting those families with expenses such as groceries, transportation, and prescription costs.  The program's collaboration with trained specialists at the hospital utilizes art in a therapeutic setting to assist children with cancer. The art supplies purchased and donated are delivered for specialized instruction and are available for both art projects and the children's personal use. The program's multiple 'Art by Kids with Cancer' exhibits throughout the community raise awareness in the general community as to the importance of the arts in healing and the challenges faced by local families of children diagnosed with cancer.

The Young Artists Awards nonprofit organization mats and frames and then showcases, sells, or auctions selected pieces of the children’s artwork at numerous venues throughout Southwest Florida.  For the past four years Arts for ACT Gallery has hosted an art exhibit for The Kids with Cancer.  Trained volunteers are available to talk about the artwork and program during the exhibit.

More information can be found at www.youngartistsawards.org.

Pat Dunn Plein Air Painter

Pat Dunn 

       

Artist Statement: To paint with passion the colors and light that reflects an inner joy enabling me to creatively express the simple pleasure of life. ~ Pat Dunn

Faces in a French Garden

Pat Dunn finds the smell of paint, the expressive colors of her palette and the sound of a moving brush across the canvas as a way to discover the simple pleasures of a visible adventure in her everyday life.  She has learn to appreciate the beauty of God’s creation in sun-bursting skies, silent shadows, gentle sea breezes, overcast mornings, dancing waters and vibrant colors of a  simple garden. She enjoys capturing pensive moments of people discovering the beauty of our world whether in a gallery or on the sea shore. These are the sensations that drive Pat to the canvas. Nature is her studio and beckons her to seek the ever changing light and colors that always excites the working artist.  She finds that is more fascinating to observe the expression of beauty in the simple things of life. Pat enjoys seeking the sensitive quality of what she feels rather than what she sees. Painting to her is more than recording the visual moment but more what she feels in her heart and soul.

Bailey's Beach

Pat Dunn loves painting on location in the early mornings when the light is ever changing and the world is beginning to come into focus. She likes to take a chance on her emotions and finds real joy in expressing her fulfillment of being a visual communicator through her creative responses. 

Her life has not always been linked to art. She moved from Louisiana to Florida after a career in the medical field. She has since been transplanted to Tennessee and knows her love for the expression of light and color will always be a vital part of her artistic expression, no matter where she sets up her easel.

She has exhibited in Sarasota, Bonita Springs, Sanibel Island, Useppa Island, Giverny France and Fort Myers. She has traveled to France to study with Gale Bennett at ArtStudy Giverny and has participated in numerous exhibitions in Southwest Florida.  Painting is her passion pursued with a great desire to glorify her Creator!

Artist at the Beach

Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, February 1, 2013 from 6 to 10 pm for the opening reception and art walk for February 2013.  Meet the artist.  Also enjoy 2 other exhibiting gallery rooms!  "Artists with Heart!" a group exhibit raising money for ACT and ACT Gallery and the Art of Kids with Cancer.  These exhibits continue until Tuesday, February 26, 2013.  

Arts for ACT Gallery provides a quality, contemporary exhibition gallery featuring original art, limited edition prints, giclees, hand-crafted fine crafts, tee shirts, silver and glass bead jewelry, gourd art, raku, clay, and art cards. It is a “must see” destination for all art lovers and collectors, providing a unique opportunity for everyone to learn and enjoy art.  Highlighting the art of the current featured artist, the front gallery, reminiscent of galleries in SoHo, has 12 to 16 foot high ceilings, distressed brick walls, and warm wooden floors. It is a great opportunity to meet the   featured artists, enjoy some local food and have a glass of wine, and engage in lively artful repartee.  The gallery has a boutique with new, vintage and gently used clothing, designer purses, jewelry and more!  

Arts for Act: Peter Stilton, Richard Bush and Christina Jarmolin...

Arts for Act: Peter Stilton, Richard Bush and Christina Jarmolin...: This month, ACT Gallery will feature Tampa artist Peter Stilton, Richard Bush and Christina Jarmolinski.  Stilton’s, sophisticated whimsica...

Peter Stilton, Richard Bush and Christina Jarmolinski to start the 2013 New Year right!

This month, ACT Gallery will feature Tampa artist Peter Stilton, Richard Bush and Christina Jarmolinski.  Stilton’s, sophisticated whimsical chair and bed paintings created in various media, Bush’s digital graphic art drawings and Jarmolinski’s abstracted collage, assemblages that are on the edgy side will be showcased this month to start the new year 2013! Come downtown to view great art and support ACT Gallery and Boutique. 

Peter Stilton

Peter Stilton is a Tampa artist who creates sophisticated whimsical paintings in a variety of themes and media, inspired in part by the “fete” paintings of rococo France.  A full-time artist for three decades with over 40 solo shows in the US and France, including La Sorbonne, his work is in private and corporate collections in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Honors include work in the state collection of France (Office of the Mayor of Paris at Hotel de Ville) and in the permanent collection of the Springfield, MA, Museum of Fine Arts. Peter Stilton’s lyrical style has been described as linear expressionism with diverse subject matter, including symbolic geometric abstracts. French art critic Charles Tanguy wrote “the artist’s favorite Chippendale chair ‘Chip’ is our guide within the poetic universe of its creator” when the “chair” paintings debuted in Paris in 1995 at the Galerie Art et Communication. Stilton is writing and illustrating a book for children about the adventure of two antique Rolls-Royces in a Lewis Carroll chessboard of art styles and musical encounters.  His art draws the viewer of his work into a world of visual surprises and sophisticated whimsy.  Peter Stilton’s distinguished academic career (masters in art history and cinema from UCLA and USC) also includes professorships of art and humanities at colleges and universities in California, Florida and New York.  Currently, the artist also teaches elementary art to inner city children and paints mostly in Florida and Maine.

Artist Statement – “My work is a kaliedoscope of all the places, colors and images I experience.  It is a congruence of the past and present moment with a tangent that points to the future.  Figurative or rhythmically abstract, my paintings reveal a substantive mental world beyond the material prose of existence.  Child-like trust opens the doors to new vistas and imaginative juxtapositions where images change dimension and properties in uncharted and delightful ways, such as the pure joy of color and line, or the Chippendale chairs, Rolls-Royces, pipe organs, and cellos all enjoying the beach.” ~ Peter Stilton

For more information on Peter Stilton, visit his website at: www.peterstilton.com       

Richard Bush

Born in Pittsburgh, PA, Richard Bush spent the greater part of his life in St. Petersburg, FL.  At 17, he attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York.  Bush graduated in 1968 with a degree in music composition.  In the early 1970’s, he moved to Cape Cod and worked as a pianist, conductor and composer receiving awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.  In 2011, Bush relocated to Fort Myers, pictorial and graphic arts have been ardent avocations of his.  A self-taught practitioner of drawing, calligraphy and computer graphics led to computer drawing.  Bush creates stylish black and white computer drawings of the late 1930’s through 1940’s old Hollywood mystery movies.  This body of work is known to him as “film noir”. 

Christina Jarmolinski

An edgy artist who loves to experiment using found objects, torn papers, gold plate, newspapers and more, Christina Jarmolinski says her art is not mainstream.  Her forte is figurative painting, which she has abstracted in her collages and assemblages.  Having studied art and languages in Europe, Christina has become established in the International and US art scene.  She has mastered many techniques including sculpture, ceramics, painting, murals and more.  She worked as a stage designer, adult and children’s art instructor and jewelry designer. 

These exhibits continue to Wednesday, January 29, 2013.  

 Arts for ACT Gallery provides a quality, contemporary exhibition gallery featuring original art, limited edition prints, giclees, hand-crafted fine crafts, tee shirts, silver and glass bead jewelry, gourd art, raku, clay, and art cards. It is a “must see” destination for all art lovers and collectors, providing a unique opportunity for everyone to learn and enjoy art.  Highlighting the art of the current featured artist, the front gallery, reminiscent of galleries in SoHo, has 12 to 16 foot high ceilings, distressed brick walls, and warm wooden floors. It is a great opportunity to meet the   featured artists, enjoy some local food and have a glass of wine, and engage in lively artful repartee.

Abstraction, Realism and Cartoons at ACT Gallery in December 2012

Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, December 7, 2012 from 6 to 10 pm for the opening reception and art walk for December 2012.  This month, ACT Gallery will feature abstract multi-dimensional works of Katherine Boren, figurative painter, Ellen Sayet and the works of Doug MacGregor.  Abstraction, Realism, and Cartoons will be showcased this month to close the year 2012! Come downtown to view great art and support ACT Gallery and Boutique. 

"Morning" by Katherine Boren

Katherine Boren

Originally, from New York, Katherine Boren studied at New York University and The New School, graduating from the State University of New York with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture. Her work has been exhibited at solo, juried, group, and member shows in New York, California, and Florida.

Her current series of abstract work experiments with multiple mediums in two dimensions. By focusing on a monochromatic palette and utilizing a combination of non-traditional and found materials in unexpected ways, she emphasizes the reflection of light and the use of various textures, shapes, and different grades of color saturation.

To make original artwork more accessible to the public as well as to benefit ACT, the pieces in this exhibit offered at reduced prices for the holiday season.

See her work at www.katherineboren.com

"Handy Apple" by Ellen Sayet

Ellen Sayet

Ellen loves to sketch and paint but they took a secondary position between two successful careers.  Now retired, the world of art has opened up as her primary focus. Self taught with an occasional drawing class, she enjoys painting realism with “an edge”.

Her figurative paintings are classic drawings with an inventive and creative side.  Most important is producing works of realism and figurative portraiture in oil and pastel, and capturing the mood, personality and inner soul of the subjects.

Doug MacGregor

Doug has been a professional cartoonist for over 32 years.  Local readers have seen his creative artwork in The News-Press for over two decades. He is also a local artist, lecturer and plays a mean blues harmonica.  Currently, Doug is Arts in Healthcare Coordinator for Lee Memorial Health Systems bringing art, music, storytelling and humor to patients and families in the area.

A 1979 graduate of Syracuse University, Doug began his cartooning career drawing sports cartoons for the Daily Orange student newspaper.  He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration from Syracuse. In 1980 he moved to Eastern Connecticut and became editorial cartoonist for the

Norwich Bulletin. In 1988 he moved to Southwest Florida and became full-time editorial cartoonist for The News-Press until June of 2011.  He has also won several state and national awards for his cartoons. Doug is a member of both the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists and

the society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

  

Doug works in a variety of mediums. He uses watercolor pencils when he creates his cartoons and children’s book illustrations. Doug also loves to paint in oil and acrylic for charity events and for leisure.  Doug has self-published a number of children’s books including his most recent, Turtellini, The Turbo-Charge Turtle, and Rad Hair Day. His Get Creative, Turn On The Bright Side Of Your Brain is also a popular favorite among the young and young at heart who need to stay creatve.

Check out Doug’s website: dougcreates.com

These exhibits continue to Wednesday, January 2, 2013.  

 Arts for ACT Gallery provides a quality, contemporary exhibition gallery featuring original art, limited edition prints, giclees, hand-crafted fine crafts, tee shirts, silver and glass bead jewelry, gourd art, raku, clay, and art cards. It is a “must see” destination for all art lovers and collectors, providing a unique opportunity for everyone to learn and enjoy art.  Highlighting the art of the current featured artist, the front gallery, reminiscent of galleries in SoHo, has 12 to 16 foot high ceilings, distressed brick walls, and warm wooden floors. It is a great opportunity to meet the   featured artists, enjoy some local food and have a glass of wine, and engage in lively artful repartee.