| |
Arts Spectrum, Sunday, June 6, 2004
By Ted McIrvine
New Gallery on Main
Those attending the June 4 Gallery Walk on Historic Main Street
discovered the “new kid on the street.” The Silver Fox Gallery, located
for several years on North Trade Street in Tryon, is now at 508 N. Main
St., Hendersonville, right next to Honeysuckle Hollow.
Adding galleries to a well-traveled area does not create competition;
the galleries are synergistic. Just look at the huge number of galleries
that co-exist successfully in Soho or Santa Fe. On Main Street here,
Studio B’s Russian impressionist paintings and A Show of Hands’
Western Carolina crafts do not compete with each other. Having
diverse galleries increases the attraction of Downtown Hendersonville
as an arts and crafts center.
You will enjoy discovering the distinctive characteristics that owners
Bonnie Rash and her husband Jim bring to the Silver Fox. The name
is subtitled “Art for Living,” reflecting the belief that contemporary art
should be incorporated into the home. Buttressing this belief is an
additional service that the gallery provides; interior design to
complement your choices of art.
Those of you who knew the gallery in Tryon will enjoy seeing the
thought that has gone into laying out the new space. The main floor is
divided into four: the Main Gallery with a large mixed collection of arts
and crafts; Gallery I containing a few pieces of well-displayed two-
dimensional fine art; Gallery II concentrating on a few pieces of well-
displayed sculpture and additional flat art; and the Design Room in
the rear.
Silver Fox features seven “gallery artists,” five painters and two
sculptors. Several of these are well-known local figures: mixed-media
virtuoso Patricia Cole-Ferullo of Tryon, Margaret Scanlan of Knoxville,
Tenn., who specializes in color field paintings, Carol Beth Icard of
Landrum, S.C., with her Italian-inspired black door-way paintings and
Phillip Dusenbury with his whimsical sculptures. Two more local
artists are Sharon Tesche of Tryon, a sculptor who is currently
producing “dancing ladies” and Jennifer Lipsey Edwards of Candler, a
graduate student at Western Carolina University whose mixed-media
paintings currently include subtle female figures within their
composition.
The one gallery artist who is “from away” is the noted painter William
Martin Jean, on the staff of the Cleveland Art Institute and a power-
house figure in mixed media. Jean’s father emigrated from Asia (the
name was Tsun) and Jean’s paintings show an Asian influence
within their geometric themes.
While the gallery will concentrate on promoting these seven artists
and providing advice and adjustments to home décor in order to
display this art to best advantage the Main Gallery also includes a few
works of other painters and an interesting collection of contemporary
crafts. Here the concentration is not on regional crafts, but more
geographic diversity within America.
The Rashes, Bonnie originally from the Pacific Northwest and Jim
from Ireland, have pursued careers on the West Coast in public
relations and sales management respectively, and Jim Rash still
regularly climbs onto an airplane to continue his career, although he
plans to phase out. The two enjoy all the performing and creative arts,
and have long had a dream of retiring to an art gallery. Now that they
have renovated the second floor of their building into living quarters,
they find themselves actually living in a art gallery. If you missed them
on the recent Gallery Walk, make a point of dropping by. This is a high
quality gallery.
|
