Jersey Shore Opening Reception

Tonight was the opening reception for the exhibition JERSEY SHORE: Images from Sandy Hook to Atlantic City, at Heaven Art and Antiques. Actually it was a big art night there on Cookman Avenue, with multiple gallery openings on the first few blocks. But of course I made my show the first stop.

The ground floor of the building is an antique shop, but there is a long narrow upstairs room that has been used as an art gallery for a few years now. The show included 63 framed works, with several of those in the landing by the stairs, and the rest in the main room. My three pieces were grouped together in the back corner, near the doorway that led to the refreshments table. My works stood out, if for no other reason that they were among the few that weren't photographs, which made up 84% of the show. There was some confusion leading into the opening, as we were all asked to state the original location for the image- easy for all those photographers, but my boardwalks are mostly products of my imagination, sometimes combining bits of several locations. I e-mailed this to the curator, who liked my answer so much that he put the little explanation of each inspiration right on the gallery list.

As for the work itself, the response from those I talked to was the usual mix of bewilderment that anyone actually still does woodcuts (all those photo based artists would be lost without their computers) and what seemed to be a real appreciation for the resulting images.

The room got really crowded at times, so I took time to check out a few other shows on the street, running into a some people I knew. (artists, gallery visitors) I made one more pass through my show, then called it a night.

The JERSEY SHORE exhibition is at Heaven Art and Antiques, 721 Cookman Avenue in Asbury Park (one block from Main). The show remains up through October 30th.