On Wednesday evening, Sept. 30, artists and neighbors gathered at First United Methodist Church in Gainesville for a chance to see one another’s work and talk about how it was made. The Meet the Artists night was part of Colors of Gainesville, a community exhibit that used the church’s Fellowship Hall and Chapel as gallery space. WUFT reported that 31 local artists from Alachua County had work in the show, while about 20 people attended the evening and roughly a dozen artists were there in person.
The exhibit was scheduled to run from Sept. 27 through Oct. 4. First UMC describes it as a multigenerational celebration of local creativity, with young artists ages 13 and older invited to exhibit alongside experienced makers. The collection included painting, photography, digital art, fiber work and sculpture. A 13-member curator team selected and arranged the works.
That range gave the exhibit room for artists at different stages to share a public setting. WUFT’s on-scene report profiled several makers whose paths into the show were personal as well as artistic: a coworker’s encouragement helped one first-time exhibitor take the step of putting her work on display, while another artist brought a shawl connected to a family memory.
A first public showing, one stitch at a time
Jamie Ancion had been cross-stitching for about two years when she prepared a piece based on Stardew Valley, the video game she enjoys. WUFT reported that she stitched 45 objects from the game into the work, translating pixel imagery into a pattern and building it stitch by stitch.
Ancion had not previously shown her work in an exhibition. Her coworker, Megan Kuhn, encouraged her to submit it. The show gave Ancion a new audience for a craft she had practiced privately, while putting a handmade interpretation of a familiar game into conversation with paintings, photographs and other forms.
Rachel Carpenter’s contribution carried a different kind of history. She made a lace shawl for her mother’s 70th birthday. After her mother died, Carpenter found it again while unpacking boxes and chose to display it as a way to honor her. WUFT reported that Carpenter’s mother had also enjoyed fiber arts, including crochet.
Carpenter had recently moved to Gainesville and had helped organize the exhibition as one of its curators. The shawl joined the show’s wider collection of pieces made across generations and mediums, while retaining the meaning it held for its maker and family.
Art drawn from nearby life
Suzanne Miller, a self-taught artist, uses graphite, charcoal and colored pencils to draw animals and wildlife. WUFT reported that she lives near San Felasco Preserve, and that nearby animals inspire her work. The three drawings she brought to the exhibit included a fawn, a cat preparing to leap and a cat sitting in a window.
Michael Passwater showed photography of wildlife, plants and the environment. His three images included a bluebird, a dolphin and a manatee with its calf. Passwater volunteers as a photographer for Kanapaha Botanical Gardens and belongs to the Gainesville Fine Arts Association, WUFT reported.
Jack Hutto was learning pottery in retirement. His pieces for the exhibit included a rustic pitcher, a pasta bowl and a vase. WUFT reported that the pitcher drew on the well-water and buttermilk pitchers used by his grandparents, while the vase represented the surprises and imperfections that can be part of learning a new craft.
Lisa Marie Mercer’s digital collages used public-domain images to form new compositions, according to WUFT. After moving to Gainesville, she joined the art committee at Trinity United Methodist Church and became active in the local arts community. The exhibit included three of her collages.
The work behind a shared gallery
First UMC says the exhibit was designed to lower the usual divide between amateur and professional artists and to create a common platform for different backgrounds and experience levels. The curators reviewed submissions, chose pieces and shaped how visitors encountered them through placement, spacing and lighting, WUFT reported.
That organizing work is easy to overlook when a gallery is open. Here, the show’s structure brought together individual practices without asking them to look alike: cross-stitch and pottery, wildlife studies and collage, a remembered shawl and photographs of the natural world. The sources describe an exhibit made from artists’ own interests and histories, selected into one community setting.
First UMC framed the exhibit as a way to celebrate artistic diversity, give young artists and hobbyists a chance to show their work beside seasoned creators, and cultivate community. WUFT’s report documented that range through artists working in cross-stitch, pottery, drawing, photography and collage, at different stages of their creative lives.
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