We won't be opening our doors for this month's 2nd Friday, but direct from their studios, some of our artists are sharing their methods of coping with and or making the best of these strange and difficult times. See below new works influenced by the corona virus pandemic from Anne Farley Gaines, Geoff Novelli and Ground Level Platform. 

I encourage you to reach out to our artists and share some of your personal experiences around how you are managing the COVID-19 crises. While maintaining social distance, lean on each other. We're all in this together.

For my part, I've taken some time to look back at images from past 2nd Fridays and am sharing some that seem to resonate now. To begin, above, see "I Want to Breathe" by Andrew Manocheo. A powerful image for our time. Then keep scrolling for past works from Elko Hardwoods, ROOMS Gallery, and finally I've included Love from NOT BORING ART. It just felt like something worth sharing.  

Stay home, stay healthy. We look forward to the time when we will welcome you back--   

Greetings, from Geoffrey Novelli: 

Hello from the studio. I created this work just before March 13th, which was scheduled to be our 2nd Friday gallery opening night. Although I must confess a sense of foreboding as I made this piece, I could not have imagined that Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot would announce a ban on public gatherings just as I completed this work and prepared to welcome guests into our home studio. March's 2nd Friday was postponed, the first time in eighteen years that 2nd Friday did not occur. It was the beginning of the journey that we are all on right now....

Stay home, stay healthy, stay safe,
Geoffrey Novelli
 
"Darkness," rubber wall sculpture, 30"long by 12"wide by 7"deep by Geoffrey Novelli.  

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Greetings, from Anne Farley Gaines: 

Hello from the studio. Included here are four works I have completed during this stressful time. All are related in some way to the coronavirus isolation. Some are completely abstract works done to come to grips with my feelings, others are a maquette for a commission and works painted on location. 

My goal is to balance works created to express emotion, empathy, and prayers generated towards the horrific angst felt worldwide over this terrible disease against sketches that require 'soothing discipline' and observation of nature, a great comforter.  Here are the selected works and their titles:

Stay home, stay healthy, my best to you and yours,
Anne Farley Gaines
 
1) "The World is Crying" -- 6x9" (this was my first in the series. I woke up feeling the acute need to paint and I felt the collective pain and anguish of the entire world.)
2) "Embracing Italy" -- 11x14" (preliminary watercolor study for a potential commission for a local bakery)
3) "Only the Birds are Congregating" -- 6x9" (painted on location in Montrose Harbor, Chicago)
4) "Pushing Away Clouds" -- 6x9" (what we wish we could do some days!)

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