Paintings, pastels and terrific pigs

To spruce up Sharon’s Hotchkiss Library’s interior and make it a draw for the community, board member Dottie Smith and others gathered paintings and sculptures from local or locally connected artists for a winter art show and sale. The show was hung by volunteer Nicholas Pentecost, a widely known New York City decorator and Sharon resident.

   Wisely, Pentecost grouped the paintings and prints mostly by artist and sprinkled sculpture here and there.  Unwisely — and through no fault of his, I’m sure — no list of art works is provided.  Visitors, one at a time, I presume, are invited to carry around the single, looseleaf notebook that sits on the reception desk.  Ridiculous.  Also, the number of each work is revealed in the faintest of handwriting on the tiny gummed stickers usual at art shows. Reading them is hard work for older eyes.

   But enough carping.  There are some really good pieces; some fair-to-middling; and only a few clunkers among the total of 67.  

   Mostly they are interesting, even the clunkers, and diverse.

   In the first room on the left, Marjorie Reid’s “Flatteryâ€� holds pride of place, while her three smaller works sit noticeably on the mantel. Reid is a very good painter, but she is difficult for most people, I suspect.  She is an absolute abstractionist, with strong painterly technique. Her paint is thick on the surfaces, canvas or linen, her colors varied and layered. In three of these works she seems preoccupied with out-of-round circles described in black line. They are worth long, and probably return, viewing.

   Linda Stillman, is represented by four small photo prints of her garden at four different times in the growing season. One could live with these. There are two Theresa Kenny watercolors in soft, pastels with wispy edges. Good for a child’s bedroom.

   The largest (and most expensive at $8,500) painting is by K. K. Kozik, who is a latter-day surrealist, in the tradition of Magritte.  This picture, “Arcadia,â€� shows a terrace above the sea with a bare-backed man turned sideways on the left, a villa’s facade on the right, and the usual surrealist collection of objects in between.  Of course they are out of scale (note the tiny chaise lounge.) And strange white squares of something or other rain down on the scene.  Colors are vivid.

   Pigs are always popular at art shows and craft fairs, why I know not. But I do own several.  Here, Peggy Kauffman’s two sculptures of porkers were the first (and only as of last weekend) pieces sold.  She has many other animal pieces — dogs, a wolf, foxes, horses — on display.  Some are very good.

   George H. Shattuck III’s three prints tend to the horizontal, with strong bands of color. Colleen McGuire contributes a haunting, Hopper-like painting of the Patco Station in Lakeville at night, all dark black and blue sky with strong yellow light from the building and above the pumps. Why, however, she is obsessed with woodpiles (one painting from her series is here)is beyond me.

    Joan Palmer’s watercolors are in strong colors with strong lines: a violin, a carousel zebra, a koi, all entirely decorative. I liked one Susan Rand: “From Sharon Flats,â€� more than her other two pieces.  And the two Allen Blagden prints, a ram’s head and a cow, are more than competent, but throw-aways in his overall body of excellent work.

   The show runs through March 30, after an official artists’ opening reception on Feb. 14, from 3-5 p.m. Call 860-364-5041.