Fireflies and Freeze Tag

Fireflies and Freeze Tag

AVA Gallery and Art Center is pleased to present a group exhibition in our Carter-Kelsey Gallery, fireflies and freeze tag. A curated, thematic group exhibition. Artists were invited to submit artwork reflecting on the joys of summer. Featuring 26 New Hampshire and Vermont artists.

fireflies and freeze tag:  A Group Exhibition

Carter-Kelsey Gallery

August 19-September 24, 2022

Opening Reception: Friday, September 2, 5-7 PM

AVA Gallery and Art Center is pleased to present a group exhibition in our Carter-Kelsey Gallery, fireflies and freeze tag. A curated, thematic group exhibition. Artists were invited to submit artwork reflecting on the joys of summer. Featuring 26 New Hampshire and Vermont artists:

Jane Ashley, Sally Bacon, Barbara Bartlett, Petey Becker, Carolyn Begley, Cheryl Betz, Annabelle Cone, Samantha M. Eckert, Mary Gerakaris, Naomi Hartov, Sher Kamman, Jillian Lauren Lisitano, Tyler Ann Mack, Meg McLean, Samantha Milnes, Travis Paige, Dana Read, Anne Cogbill Rose, Jonathan Rose, Joseph Saginor, Ann Saunderson, Jim Schubert, Margaret Shipman, Michele Spotts, Heather Stearns, and Sheryl Trainor.

Image credit, left to right: Meg McClean, Feathers over Falmouth, oil on cradled panel, 18×24, $1800; Ann Saunderson, Pool Painting, acrylic on canvas, 24×30, $1200; Jonathan Rose, Joy, acrylic on board, 20×16, $850.

A summer poem to accompany the theme and artwork:

Summer Haibun by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

To everything, there is a season of parrots. Instead of feathers, we searched the sky for meteors on our last night.  Salamanders use the stars to find their way home. Who knew they could see that far, fix the tiny beads of their eyes on distant arrangements of lights so as to return to wet and wild nests? Our heads tilt up and up and we are careful to never look at each other. You were born on a day of peaches splitting from so much rain and the slick smell of fresh tar and asphalt pushed over a cracked parking lot. You were strong enough—even as a baby—to clutch a fistful of thistle and the sun himself was proud to light up your teeth when they first swelled and pushed up from your gums. And this is how I will always remember you when we are covered up again: by the pale mica flecks on your shoulders. Some thrown there from your own smile. Some from my own teeth. There are not enough jam jars to can this summer sky at night. I want to spread those little meteors on a hunk of still-warm bread this winter. Any trace left on the knife will make a kitchen sink like that evening air

the cool night before
star showers: so sticky so
warm so full of light

Copyright © 2017 by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 7, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

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