Artist on the Loose
corralled on Williams Street
Virginia Webb’s series of photographs on glass started when her husband cut milkweeds from their yard and laid them on her granite countertop. Nature took it from there. A pod full of seeds opened in front of her eyes, and Webb grabbed her camera. She took pictures for the next five weeks.
“I didn’t have to do a thing, but just watch,” she says. “It looked like a universe to me. It looked like dancers.”
Webb’s milkweed series hangs among dozens of pieces at the Artists on the Loose location at 1401 Williams St.
The show features art from 11 local artists including Terry Rafferty and Cindy Procious, whose artwork hangs in national galleries.
The group includes 10 painters, one photographer and one woodworker. It’s made of independent artists. They’re not a co-op or a gallery. But they share studio space, says oil painter Ann Currey.
“We have fabulous art, and we are fun,” she says.
Other artists include oil painters Leah True and David Salerno, Kate Dilworth and Ellen Franklin.
Artwork ranges from $25 to $3,000.
Webb encourages everybody to visit, even people who have never visited an art gallery.
People who think they don’t understand art have no need to be intimidated, she says.
“It’s about seeing and looking,” she explains. “You look all day, but every once in a while you will see something that gets your attention and you don’t have to explain it. You don’t have to understand it. You just have to love it.”
The space is open to the public from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The location will be closed during the week of Dec. 25.
The Artist on the Loose showcase includes Ellen Marsh Franklin’s encaustic paintings, Bill Johnson’s heirloom furniture, Maddin Corey’s oil paintings and portraits, and Janis Wilkey’s paintings.
“Art is important because it opens an experience of being alive,” she says. “Not every piece of art will speak to you, but when a piece of art does speak to you, it is arresting and it is uplifting.”
– VIRGINIA WEBB
Webb started Artists on the Loose with four other friends and fellow artists in March 2016. She says the group, best described as a club, is held together by the members’ appreciation and high standards for art.
“Art is important because it opens an experience of being alive,” she says. “Not every piece of art will speak to you, but when a piece of art does speak to you, it is arresting and it is uplifting.”
Contact Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 757-6431.