A new gallery has opened in Wake Forest just in time for August’s Art After Hour, a stroll through the studios and shops Friday evening from about 5 to 9 p.m. Visitors can top it off with dinner at one of the downtown restaurants.
The Creo Gallery and Center for Creative Expression is the joint effort of Wanda Mukherjee and Jeanna Jinks. They plan to teach creative writing, movement, art and music classes. The gallery at 102 Roosevelt Avenue next to the Underpass (once the Pope Shoe Repair Shop) is also home to an online newspaper, WakeForestToday.com and The Paper Journey Press, which publishes fiction and poetry.
For Art After Hours, Mukherjee and Jinks are hosting Charlotte artist Ladianne Mandel, who will be showing her art – photography, felt and other media – and reading from her book of poetry, “Play Them Bones.” She will read at 7 p.m. and then autograph copies of the book.
There will be photography and art together in a local couple, Sol and Sheila Levine. Sol’s award-winning nature photography is in collections worldwide, and Sheila uses her husband’s photos as a starting point for her acrylic paintings. See them and their art at the Sunflower Studio and Gallery just a step down East Jones Avenue from South White Street. There will be refreshments.
It is just paintings and it is hot, “Bloomin’ Hot” in Bonnie J. Becker’s colorful flower watercolors. She started painting a large red-orange iris, “Red Velvet,” and then kept going through the warm side of the color palette. See them all at Wake Forest Art & Frame where owner Beth Massey does make the best punch. There will also be other refreshments.
Back to photography down the street at The Cotton Company, which is welcoming Katie Probst, well known as Lotus Digital Photography. Her show is titled “Life and Landscape in the Lotus.” She explains: “While life can place your roots in murky waters (like the lotus flower), if you allow yourself to rise above, you can open up to the beauty and energy of life. All of that can be captured forever through art. You just have to leave your eyes and your soul open and the beauty and energy of life will be right in front of you.” Again, there will be refreshments.
Art After Hours is sponsored by Wake Forest Downtown, the new name for what was the Downtown Renewal Corporation. The group provides the free horse and carriage rides each month.
