Blue Horse Studio Exhibition

Will Bring Artists’ Project Full Circle

By Shannon Hicks

WATERTOWN — Two local artists — one who lives in Newtown and the other who maintains a studio here — are among nine regional artists who will be participating in “Crop Circle,” an exhibition that will open at Blue Horse Arts Studio in Watertown on October 28.

The theme of the exhibition is the connection between food, culture, and the environment, thinking globally and acting locally. The conceptual thread of this exhibition is based on the outreach and entanglement of artists, farmers, the environment, and community through mutual exchange. Artists, according to gallery director Bridget Grady, were asked “to support local farmers by creating a piece inspired by and purchased at a local farmers market.” The second criterion is that the artists will donate a percentage of the sale of their work to the local food bank.

“This donation benefits the community, the farmers, and the artists who participate in this project,” Ms Grady said via a recent press release. “The rationale behind this is to support, at least symbolically, the Connecticut farmers who practice organic and sustainable agriculture at a local level. Public attendance [during the opening reception] brings the project full circle.”

Artists participating in “Crop Circle” will be Ms Grady, of Watertown, along with Anne Flynn of Old Saybrook, Matang Gonzales of Bethlehem, Bill Gusky of Canton, Georgia Sheron of Oakville, Kristie Holiday from Boston; and Kathy Good from Providence, R.I.

Also represented in the collection will be Heidrun Morgan of Newtown, and Ginger Hanrahan of Bethel, who has a studio in town.

Happy Creating Art

Neighbors and friends of Heidrun Morgan know, she says, to not throw things out before she can look at them to see if she can reuse them in her art. A self-taught mosaic artist, Ms Morgan has long enjoyed working with glass, first creating mosaics and more recently creating Tiffany-style glass panels and lampshades after taking classes with Michael Skrtic at The Glass Source in Shelton. She uses as many recycled, repurposed, and leftover materials as possible. A world traveler with a fondness for art, Ms Morgan says it was her love of art and creativity that inspired visits to The Louvre in Paris, Alte Pinakothek in Munich, The Guggenheim in Berlin, and New York City’s MoMa and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“During my travels in Europe, I purchase novelty tiles and other items to make my mosaics unique,” said the artist. Ms Morgan recently added a kiln to her art studio, which allows her to create her own fused glass work at home.

Examples of her work can be found at Everything Newtown, Newtown Florist, and McLaughlin Vineyards, as well as in the homes of family, friends, and clients in Germany (her native country) and the United States.

Ms Morgan uses both the “direct” method for creating mosaics with depth (gluing items to a surface and then, grouting the entire piece) as well as an “indirect” method to create a flat surface for her stepping stones and tabletops (creating a mosaic upside down and then reinforcing it with cement or adhering it to a surface).

 The owner-operator of a daycare center in Newtown, Ms Morgan always plans field trips for her children to local farms each autumn.

“Fall, harvest time, farmers markets… my favorite time of year,” Ms Morgan said. “I also love to tend to my yard, growing an abundance of flowers and vegetables every year.”

After a trip to Blue Horse Studios and an invitation from Ms Grady to create a piece for “Crop Circle,” Ms Morgan “knew right away,” she said, “that I would make a mosaic picturing Indian corn.”

Fused glass pieces have been used for the corn’s kernels. A study of the twists and turns taken by corn stalks and dry leaves has also been incorporated into the work.

“The background of my mosaic has a circular motion. My intent here was to combine the idea of crop circles with an ancient technique called opus circumactum in mosaics,” explained the artist.

“I need to create to be happy,” she said in her artist’s statement. “Working with glass is the perfect addiction of sorts because each piece is unique and giving life to my ideas completes me.”

An Adjunct Professor & Painter

Ginger Hanrahan met Blue Horse Arts Studio gallery owner Bridget Grady when both women attended and then graduated from Western Connecticut State University. Ms Hanrahan received her master’s in painting from WCSU in 2007, continuing an educational career that includes a master’s in public health from Yale University (1991) and a bachelor’s in anthropology from the University of California at Santa Cruz (1984).

Her work has been shown in numerous galleries and juried shows in the Northeast. Additionally, her paintings have been placed in several private collections. She has extensively trained with painters Hugh O’Donnell, Susanna Coffey, Thomas Bosket, Marjorie Portnow, Susanna Coffey, and Margaret Grimes.

Ms Hanrahan has been an adjunct professor in the art department at Post University since 2008. In addition, she is part of Newtown Art, a collective of artists who are working out of Edmond Town Hall. She has begun offering classes from the studio space, and hopes to have open studio nights and juried art shows in the future.

“I am in love with Newtown,” the full-time artist told The Bee. “And the town hall is a great site. There are a lot of artists in the building — the [Lathrop] dance studio, a theater group, and there are always music lessons going all the time. I’m terribly excited about the larger picture. My intention, in the long rung, is to run a fine arts school of sorts.”

Meanwhile her own creativity keeps her very busy. Ms Hanrahan has been included in exhibitions steadily since 2003, presenting her fiber and paper pieces and paintings in many juried shows. Her artwork has even graced the walls of Blue Horse Arts before, when she presented some of  her graduate work in the studio’s former incarnation as Porter Street Artist’s Collective.

Her art, she said in an artist’s statement for the upcoming Watertown presentation, “celebrates the unseen, neglected and forgotten — such as derelict buildings or the world of our dreams. It is heavily influenced by the Pattern and Decoration Movement and by traditional handcrafts. It uses symbolic abstraction to advance a narrative, to tell the story of things seen out of the corner of the eye: the memories, monuments and random cultural signifiers and the mysterious shapes found in the woods or the junkyard.”

“Embedded in my paintings are secret maps of the psyche,” she continued, “it is my intention to portray the object as a microcosm of the whole. Ultimately, these pieces act as road maps guiding us toward an intimate, visceral experience of organic and non-organic life structures.”

Ms Hanrahan is considering four works for “Crop Circle.” The exhibition, she says, “is very big for me,” having been raised in the Bucks Country area of Pennsylvania, around Mennonites and farmers.

“The lifestyle that brings us back to our survival roots is very important,” she said last week. “The work of farmers and people like them, who put their sweat and toil in to produce food products for us, is very important on many, many levels.”

One of the works going into the exhibition is a large scale (73 by 58 inches) acrylic on canvas piece called “On Their Backs.” In stark blues, grays, black, and white, the artist has put a pair of men in the lower corners of the work, both bent over in backbreaking tasks. One man is in the downswing of using an axe, while the other is either pulling or planting something in rocky ground.

Above each man — on their backs — Ms Hanrahan has created a large scene of industry, either a factory or a mill of some type, very tall and mechanical.

“I am interested in sustaining local products of all sorts,” she said. “Several of my paintings either touch on the political aspect of that, or the emotions.

“Bridget knows that this is a generalized theme for me, with my background in community health,” she continued. “Where we live, how we treat each other, what we eat and how we take care of our bodies, how we raise our children and what we leave them, is all very important to me. It’s all part of what I paint.”

The public is invited to the opening reception of “Crop Circle” on Friday, October 28. The event, called “Field Projects,” will run from 7 to 9 pm, and will offer farm-fresh refreshments and live music by The Billy Cactus Band and The Electric Bakery. Jay Foster, Ms Grady’s husband and the owner of the adjacent JFosterMusic Studio, will sit in with the musicians, along with David Howard of the Please and Thank You Stringband. It will also offer the opportunity to view the collection and meet most of the artists represented, including Ms Morgan. (Ms Hanrahan cannot attend due to a prior commitment, but has promised to send a representative, some of her “emissaries — a small posse that follows me,” she said with a laugh, “and blocks of cheese. I will certainly be there in spirit. I work hard on all these projects, but I just cannot make it to this opening.”

The gallery-music studio complex is at 250 Porter Street in Watertown.

“Crop Circle” will remain on view until November 5, open daily from noon until 5 pm or by appointment. Call Ms Grady at 860-417-3243. For information, send an e-mail to bgrady@bridgetgrady.com or visit BlueHorseArts.blogspot.com.

For additional images of work by Ms Morgan and Ms Hanrahan, visit this week’s Newtown Bee Facebook photo album.