In the Gallery

In homage of the rosie month dedicated to love, the ChathamArts Gallery’s current exhibit is entitled, “Object of Desire”. The object that the artists submit will be an interpretive perspective on desire in all its potential meanings and relationships.

The show runs form February 1st through February 28th. At the opening reception from noon to 5 pm during Pittsboro’s “First Sunday Gallery Walk” on February 1st, the public will have the chance to meet and chat with artist Emma Skurnick at 1:30pm as she will be doing a painting demonstration and discussing her techniques, as well as answering questions about working as both a fine artist and illustrator. Not to be missed will be the live sounds of the Chatham County Orchestra founded by Christian Stith, a high school senior, playing throughout the afternoon.

Additional Information on the artist speaking

As Emma Skurnick writes about her latest watercolor entitled, “Screeches and Poetry”: “When my husband began to woo me, he presented me with a book of poems written by Rainer Maria Rilke. Fifteen enchanting years later, this poem still sends me back to those first, anxious days of love.”

I am, you anxious one.
Don’t you sense me, ready to break
into being at your touch?
My murmurings surround you like shadowy wings.
Can’t you see me standing before you
cloaked in stillness?
Hasn’t my longing ripened in you
from the beginning
as fruit ripens on a branch?

I am the dream you are dreaming.
When you want to awaken, I am that wanting:
I grow strong in the beauty you behold.
And with the silence of stars I enfold
your cities made by time.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Emma Skurnick spends a lot of time observing the beauty and strangeness of the natural world, and her paintings - mere snapshots in time - can never do justice to the intricacy she sees around her. The pleasure she derives from spending the hours, days, and weeks it takes to study her portrait subjects - noting the delicate fuzz on the underside of a leaf, or the way color shifts along the length of a bird’s feather - is reward enough. The finished artwork often feels like mere artifact to her: proof of the time she has spent, and of the awe she feels, for each subject of each painting.

Her hope is to have the viewers of her paintings share a bit of this joy and pleasure. By making modest animals large - by painting a toad or songbird three feet tall - perhaps she can startle people into appreciating the world we tend to pass by. By isolating the fox or the lily against a simple white background, perhaps she can allow us to see some of what we miss as we speed along. And by granting these creatures a bit of personality and humor, maybe Skurnick can convince a viewer to slow down and consider the beings with whom we share our space; something beneficial in ways we may never anticipate and can greatly benefit.

Additional information on the Chatham County Orchestra:

Christian Stith, a high school senior, moved to Chatham County in the past year from Chapel Hill. He was part of an orchestra while living there. And discovered the drive to be too far from his new home. In order to continue his passion for music within the context of the orchestra, he decided to start his very own in Chatham County. The orchestra is in its very beginning stages as Stith, a clarinetist, is searching for others that share his love of music. Christian’s brother, Cole, playing the violin, has joined him. The pair can be found melodiously wooing the gallery goers at the ChathamArts Gallery on the “First Sunday” gallery walk each month from noon to 5pm. Come watch this duo grow simply out of the passion for music; what it provides to those who play and to those who are soaking up the resonating symphonics.

ChathamArts Gallery exhibits and sells a range of original works by local artists, Wednesdays-Saturdays 11 to 5 and Sunday 12-4, First Sunday 12 to 4:30, 115 Hillsboro Street, Pittsboro, 919-542-4144.