Mellow Yellow

The very choice of the name for this show set a tone… an expectation of brightness, of bold color, of shades and tones that evoke happiness  warmth, joy.  And the crowd was larger than expected for a cold winter friday, with winter storm warnings, and frosty wind chill in the air.  Chagrin Falls sits right in the heart of the Snow Belt, receiving more snow than my west side home.  It was a bit of a drive but worth the evening.   And how lovely was the evening.  Yellow beckoned us in, gave us a reminder of the beautiful spring flowers, and the golden tones of the sun, of all things inviting and warm.  Yellow dances in the flowers caught on paint and canvas, or filtered the light of a photograph to give a vintage golden hue.  And yellow was playfully abstract, subtle in the felting of a piece in alpaca, or it was bold and exotic in the shape of unusual art pottery.

I must be honest in telling you I was most eager to see how my “sunflower” had been positioned in the gallery, and how it was curated.  I had high hopes the piece would have been hung as a canvas, on the wall, visually popping out the entire image.  But there it was… rumpled onto a mannequin.  Awe. my heart sunk.  All the details were lost to the frumpy way it was loosely formed around the mannequin   while nobody was looking i tweaked it a bit… tried to bring the display into more of a polished look.  There were some people stopping to look at it, touch it, but they could not see the sunflower in the way it was displayed.

The exhibit runs through March 20th, 2014.  If you have not had a chance to visit and see the exhibit plan a day and go… there was so much more than what i captured on my camera… and seeing things in person is a whole different experience.

Valley Art Center is located at 155 Bell sTreet in Chagrin Falls,  Ohio