accidental discovery

Today wasn't so much a creative day, but I found one of the most wonderful art galleries ever, completely by accident. The plan was for the kids & I to go have lunch with Scott in Grass Valley, where he's working these days, then spend some time this afternoon at the Empire Mine. Some of the trees are starting to turn and with the kids out of school this week, I thought it would be a good thing for all of us. Unfortunatly, it decided to rain today, so hiking around in the woods just didn't seem like so much fun.

So I convinced my young teens that it would be fun to go to Nevada City and wander around the old town there, poke through some shops and by the way, maybe find an art gallery or two. As providence would have it, the parking spot I managed to work my way into was right in front of an art gallery. I'd never even heard of it before, but it was raining & it looked like as good a place as any to duck into. The sign on the door said Mowen Solinksy Gallery, and immediately the work inside began to draw us in, deeper and deeper.

Besides all the inviting artwork, I began to see work from artist's that I recognized and very much respect. Carol Aust, a friend of a friend, has some wonderful figurative paintings there in her rich pallette, including paintings on the center pages of books that just blew me away. Then some photoraphs pulled me to them, and I saw the work of Steve Solinsky, which seemed familiar to me, both the name & the work. I'm a little slow sometimes, so it took me some time to realize that Steve is a fellow member at Viewpoint and had work at the KVIE art auction that I recently helped at. I also saw work from Huntington Witherall, whose work is going up at Viewpoint this month.

By now even my teens were enjoying themselves and we spent a serious amount of time pointing out interesting artworks to each other. Deidre and I both really enjoyed the mixed media constructions by Teresa Eaton, the textures and earthy colors of her woven looking works with boxes in the center reminded me of finding treasures in my grandfather's garage. Phillip and I found a couple watercolors with such intricate details of dotted patterns on an intricate fish's scales, that we were thoroughly impressed with the time and talent such work required. The colors were vivid and bright and the overall effect was stunning, but I forgot the artist's name.

We also found really amazing wirework, and glass and I saw lovely pieces by my friend Joseph Bellacera as well, which Dee also happened to be drawn to. We were like little children in a candy store - oh look at this! every step of the way. If you ever find yourself near Nevada City, it's more than worth the time to visit this lovely gallery. I even found their website (www.mowensolinskygallery.com) but it's not near as good as going there.