Artist David Moore and Kristen Kilner Holmes are shown Sunday at the opening of Connexions, an exhibition at the Gallery in the Grove celebrating the art gallery’s 40th anniversary. Kilner Holmes is co-chairperson of the show, with Sylvia Foreman.
Evidence of connections made by Gallery in the Grove over the decades hung on its walls Sunday for the opening of Connextions – an exhibition celebrating the volunteer-run art gallery’s first 40 years.
Created in 1980 by a group of women with a passion for art, education and their community, Gallery in the Grove stages art shows on the second floor of the library building in Bright’s Grove, sends artists to teach in Grade 6 classrooms and provides local students with scholarships to study art at college and university.
To celebrate its 40th year, the gallery organized Connextions, which runs through Feb. 22, and invited more than 30 artists with connections to Gallery in the Grove to take part.
They include Jack Keefe, Ian McLean, Ariel Lyons, David Moore, Regina Gudelis and others, including several past gallery scholarship winners.
“It’s about artists who shared in our evolution over 40 years,” said Kristen Kilner Holmes, who is co-chairperson of the exhibition with Sylvia Foreman.
In one of the gallery’s two exhibition rooms on the second floor of the historic Feathorne House, a piece by Lyons sits not far from artwork by Ben Skinner.
Lyons is a retired art teacher at the high school in Petrolia who also served on the gallery’s board. She taught Skinner, an artist now based in Vancouver, who received one of the gallery scholarships.
“So, that’s a cool connection,” Kilner Holmes said.
Since 1982, the gallery has awarded more than $140,000 in scholarships to local students going on to college and university.
The exhibition also includes work by scholarship recipient Paula McLean and her father Ian McLean, another of several local art teachers featured.
Along with the art, historical documents have been gathered about the gallery, including board minutes from its first year and a set of letters showing how the municipality was considering a recommendation to tear down Feathorne House at one point in the 1970s, before deciding instead to renovate it.
It was built in approximately 1875 by Col. Robert Faethorne on an original land grant given to his father-in-law, Henry Jones, as the site of the Maxwell settlement – a short-lived attempt to establish a communal community in the new world.
Faethorne House was also the summer home London’s John Labatt was renting when he was kidnapped in 1934 on the drive from Bright’s Grove back to his brewery.
Connexions is the first exhibition of the 40th anniversary year for the gallery, which is still run entirely by approximately 80 volunteers.
They include several who were part of the group that founded the gallery.
“They are so proud and happy that we’re still going strong,” Kilner Holmes said.
Recently, the gallery provided $10,000 which the city is matching to come up with plans to expand facility and make it more accessible.
“We are going to be working really hard and advocating for this building – advocating for this community to have expanded programming space and to make this space accessible,” Kilner Holmes said.
Information about the gallery and its upcoming exhibitions can be found at its website, www.galleryinthegrove.com.
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