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July 9 to August 30, 2020
DeBlois Gallery's 36th Annual Members' Show

Welcome to our online exhibit!
Click the tabs below to view each facet of this great show. Enjoy!

Our Show
Berry
Caplain
Casselman
Debrule
Howe
Leyenberger
Lynch
May
Nash
O'Donnell
Stone
Wilner
Gallery Nights
Summer 2020 Members' Show

The members of the DeBlois Gallery non-profit artist cooperative have worked through the trials of quarantine and distancing to provide exciting, memorable art in the unusual Summer of 2020. We celebrate our 36th anniversary as an art gallery by observing all safety precautions in the gallery, and holding outdoor receptions on July 9 and August 13 in conjunction with Gallery Night, along with our fellow members of the Newport Gallery Organization.

Shawndavid Berry

I strive to make connections between movement and flow in my work. Everything has a way of melding into another. Working in both sculpture and fine work I hope to present these concepts.
90% of the material I sculpt is harvested, processed, treated and dried myself. The color is naturally enhanced through my drying and treatment process. I do not use stain and the only film finish I use is a rubbing process of wax, shellac and lacquer.  I am very fortunate to work in a field where I have clients who donate to my drying racks. This specific species and sample came from a tree I have known since I was 12, when I first started carving. I know every single thing this tree has absorbed since it was 5 feet tall, it was 75' when the trunk this came from split and fell. Through a deep understanding of my material, to a cellular level, I work with and within the grain and growth rings to bring as much flowing movement. These are meditation pieces, they are meant to be touched and can help clear one's mind.

Shawndavid's Art

Bloom, red oak, $750
Breaking Out, single piece maple, $1000
Carved Bowl, maple, $300
Floating Island, distressed maple, $500
Maple Trencher, maple, $220
Mulberry Tray, mulberry, $120
Octolove Again, oil on canvas, $175
Plur Roses, oil on canvas, $175
Sculpture Bowl, mulberry wood, $400
Seaweed Carving I, black walnut, $225
Seaweed Carving II, black walnut, $225
Seaweed Carving III, black walnut, $225
Tea Cup, maple, $200
Time, single piece maple, $650



Ron Caplain

Ron Caplain
These are all done in Paris last year - all with the iPhone
- Paris abounds with art - and it is everywhere besides the museums
- the clock and the kids was done in the Musee d'Orsay
- the Van Gogh was in Son et Lumiere Museum
- the two kids are outside the Louvre
- and the pumpkin artist is Yayoi Kusama. She is quite old and was temporarily in the Place Vendome.


Ron's Paris - and an Art Rug!

Hot in Harlem, wool hooked rug, $500
Louvre, Paris, 16"x20" framed, iPhone photo, $200
Musee d'Orsay, Paris, 16"x20" framed, iPhone photo, $200
Musee d'Orsay, Paris, 16"x20" framed, iPhone photo, $200
Musee Son et Lumieres, 16"x20" framed, iPhone photo, $200
Place Vendome, 16"x20" framed, iPhone photo, $200


Izabella Casselman

Found
Found
Size: 42"x44", mixed media, $800

Hands
We use our hand to pat someone on their head to let them know it’s all ok. We use it when slapping someone when they cross the line. We wash both our hands before we eat. We reach out a hand to shake someone’s hand in greetings. We use our hand to hold something down and use both hands to hold and comfort. We put our hands together to pray. We show what we have in our hand as an offering to another. Hand to hand we reach out in good will.


Angels Back to Work
Size: 24"x36", mixed media, $600
For Bart
30"x60", mixed media with broiler pan, $600

Valerie Debrule

La Vie en Rose is my collage series, or "Life through rose-colored glasses" as Piaf would say. Here are a few of my favorite things in happy, red-rosy colors. The pretty, but treacherous, rose-colored Coronavirus has changed all our lives because we now have time to think and rethink. Life through my real transitional lens would result in angrier art and be more-likely spray-painted on walls.


La Vie en Rose

Delta Diva, 12"x15", collage/acrylic, $275
Her Dressing Gown, 12"x15", collage/acrylic, $275
Hit the Beach, 12"x15", collage/acrylic, $275
I've Got a Lot on My Mind, 12"x15", collage/acrylic, $275
Old Flame, 12"x15", collage/acrylic, $275
Persephone and Her Pomegranate, 12"x15", collage/acrylic, $275


Mandy Howe

Boardwalk, Sakonnet Greenway I have always drawn from nature and I usually work in a series that is inspired by a particular place. I am drawn to a view, respond to a detail or chance encounter with something that lives there. When I “see“ a painting, compose a painting in my mind’s eye, that is the start of a journey into the lines and colors, spaces and feelings of that particular place.
During the Covid-19 Quarantine I found it very difficult to immerse myself in what is for me the very intense process of painting: I go all in. In the uncertainty and anxiety of this period I couldn’t focus and became restless. So I went outside and began drawing things in my yard.
I decided to make linoleum block prints from some of these sketches and began to work on several 12”x12” soft-cut linoleum blocks at a time. These were done between late February and early June.
First I transfer a sketch to the linoleum block, draw what I want to print and carve away the rest.
The carving away process is very soothing and inking the plates and the printing itself very spontaneous and unpredictable. I played with layering color and adding details by stamping and painting directly onto the prints. I also cut up some of the blocks and printed sections separately or on top of each other.
I am still experimenting with a series of prints and slowly getting back into painting.

Pictured: Boardwalk, Sakonnet Greenway, acrylic with collage, $300


Mandy's Prints and Paintings

May Apple Blossoms, linoleum blockprint, $250
May Apple Tree, linoleum blockprint, $250
February, linoleum blockprint, $250
March, linoleum blockprint, $250
April, linoleum blockprint, $150
June, linoleum blockprint, $150
In the Woods, acrylic, $200
Skunk Cabbage, acrylic, $100
May Woods, linoleum blockprint, $250
Swamp Sunset, acrylic, $100


Fran Alford Leyenberger

Fran at workOriginally from Newport, RI, I've been working in clay for over 50 years. My styles range from art deco, Japanese americanized raku, tableware and now architecturally inspired porcelain and lighting. In 2019 I began working in porcelain after 50 years concentrating in stoneware and raku clay. It's a totally different material for me and has led me in a completely new direction with my work. The architecture surrounding me in Newport, RI and Bucks County, PA are the inspiration highlighted in my new lighting work.

Fran's Ceramics

Barack Obama, porcelain ceramic lighting, $175
Brooklyn Bridge, porcelain ceramic lighting, $175
Lady Liberty, porcelain ceramic lighting, $175
Newport Pell Bridge, porcelain ceramic lighting, $195
Old Stone Mill, porcelain ceramic lighting, $175
Schooner, porcelain ceramic lighting, $175
Trenton Makes Bridge, porcelain ceramic lighting, $175


JR Lynch

JR Lynch I make images using photography. For me, photography is capturing the moment, which through the lens is a totally different perspective than just being there. It is a look, an angle or just a special mix of shapes and shades. When I shoot, I like to spend time where I am to absorb the spirit of it all and then it just happens.
I shoot with a Canon EOS 5D digital full frame single lens reflex camera. I utilize Adobe Light Room to make small adjustments to the image to produce just the right result…. that is, right for me, for that is why I do this.
While visiting Zermatt, Switzerland in the Swiss Alps which can only be accessed by train I spent time absorbing the power and beauty of these mountains. “Down to Zermatt” reminds me of the distance that I have come In my life. “The Matterhorn” represents the future of my life.


Down to Zermatt
Size: 29"x22" framed, color photograph, $350

The Matterhorn
22"x29" framed, color photograph, $350

Lisa May

Lisa at work
Covid Chiroptera came to me in a nightmare and is my representation of the Coronavirus. It combines batlike elements as a nod to the source of the virus as well as features inspired by the Balinese sculptures my daughter saw on her trip to Indonesia just before Covid lockdown. We collaborated on this piece while in quarantine together. It has been an outlet to channel those fears and anxieties about the pandemic. Our way of giving a face to an "invisible monster".


COVID Chiroptera
packing paper and abaca fiber, $500


Karen Marsteller Nash

Charmin Earrings Quarantine made me antsy. So I beaded some Charmin earrings, shown here, along with my seldom-seen mask zone. Silly fun.

But soon, silly didn't work. Soon, some earlier work started speaking to me, newly timely. Climate change had prompted me to repurpose styrofoam waste into the two 3D pieces shown here, which speak to painful societal sicknesses.

Blue Goddess of Abuse Victims: The Bhannila Tantra tells of the Goddess of Speech, famed for her beauty and milk-white skin, who was abducted and violently raped by a pair of evil demons. In outrage and trauma, she lost her speech, and her skin turned blue. Thus she symbolizes the many victims of violence who feel that they are voiceless and dare not speak out against their abusers. #MeToo.

Then came the horrors, the resurgence of Black Lives Matter after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and global demonstrations. And there was Cain and Abel, another styro assemblage evoking yin vs yang, black vs white, sibling vs sibling, the inhumanity of one human to another. #BLM.

That brought me back to Circling the Drain. Too many of us have been sucked into the maelstrom of COVID-19; no further comment needed. #resist.


Karen's Styro and Digital Assemblages

Blue Goddess of Abuse Victims, styrofoam assemblage, $175
Cain and Abel, styrofoam assemblage, $175
Circling the Drain, framed digital assemblage, $150


Michael O'Donnell

For Piet's Sake


I’ve tried to imagine what would result if Mondrian had been just a little loosey goosey.Michael O'Donnell












For Piet's Sake, , 12"x12", acrylic on canvas, $300


Signal(4), acrylic on panel, $1000


Virginia Stone

Art is what defines my life. As an artist, I have chosen many different paths in making art and in teaching others about art. This includes teaching art history at UConn, studio art at Portsmouth Abbey School, the Coop High School in New Haven, and CPCC, Charlotte, NC, and Elderhostel art programs in Rhode Island.

I have enjoyed and been enriched by my associations with fellow artists at the Deblois Gallery, Featherstone Center for the Arts in Oak Bluffs, MA, and Center Gallery, Carrboro, NC. I have personally shown at over 30 exhibitions of my work in different locations on the East coast.

As I have changed, my work and focus has changed. I have moved from early abstract subjects to observed work including landscapes, interiors and people. I include humor and beauty in my work to make people think, wonder and laugh at an image or an assemblage of images. My art becomes an improvisation inspired by the experience of the world before me. The result is a work of art that ends up in an unforeseen place, richer than and very different from where it started.

Education:
UNC Chapel Hill BA Art
Cranbrook MFA Studio Art
Arts Student League NYC
RISD Teachers Program
Connecticut Alternate Route for Teachers


Virginia's Art

A Squire, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
Am I Ready, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
Andy the Door Bum, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
Don't Tell Her No, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
Flame Stitch, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
Headgear, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
It Figures, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
She Thought Her Past Was Behind Her, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
The Flame Behind Her, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
Why Is It So Hard, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
The Next Move, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75
I Hope He Does Not Bring His Cousin, 5"x5", Prismacolor, $75


Marion Wilner

Root
Root of Inspiration



In the "ROOTS" drawings I worked directly from nature and was affected by sight and sound, touch and smell. My work concerns itself with the revelation of order in nature. Using acrylic inks and bold brushstrokes of browns and blacks on paper the marks express the internal structure and great beauty of organic elements.


Marion's ROOTS Series

Roots #1, acrylic ink, $800
Roots #2, acrylic ink, $800
Roots #3, acrylic ink, $800
Roots #4, acrylic ink, $800


Opening sunset
Photo credit: Michael Landers

The July 2020 Gallery Night also marked the festive opening of our 36th annual Members' Show. In observance of COVID-19 safety requirements, our reception was held outside under canopies. Visitor Michael Landers memorialized the occasion with this golden sunset over neighboring Green End Pond.