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As Featured in Boston.com "Melrose: Local
art gallery turns 10" By: Travis Andersen Hourglass Art and Gift Gallery turns 10 this month, and owner Lorrie DiCesare will show all 14 of her contracted artists to mark the milestone. The artists - all of whom have shown at Hourglass for at least eight years - hail from Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but they get around. Painter Nedret Andre has one piece hanging behind DiCesare's cash register, and several more in a gallery in Turkey. "She's my first international artist," DiCesare said. DiCesare moved to her current space on Main Street in 2000, after a year in a smaller spot on West Emerson Street. She sells fine art, as well as home furnishings, jewelry, and assorted crafts. She usually features one artist per month, but in June she'll show pieces from her full cadre to celebrate a decade in the arts. "So many art stores don't make it," DiCesare said, adding that she's lucky to have a gallery in Melrose, where many residents appreciate fine art. She gave locals a sneak peak at the celebratory exhibit, called "Artist 14," on Thursday. It opens Saturday afternoon, with a reception and live music. Several artists in her stable will attend. Saugus resident Jessica Miller sells T-shirts and other products out of DiCesare's store. She loves the gallery and gift shop concept. "This is something that I'd love to own," Miller said. Her business partner, Pamela Hachey, agreed. "I think there should be more stores like this," she said. DiCesare worked in commercial insurance for over 20 years before opening her gallery. She sells handmade American artwork and a few items from Canada. Repeat customer Jacqueline Crowley, of Melrose, stills remembers her last purchase, a starfish ornament that hangs on her kitchen wall. She enjoys browsing at Hourglass. "I love it," she said. "Just the unique items, the variety." Previous
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New Italian Soaps at Hourglass:
Jessie
Crowley -Waisnor, Jeweler and longtime exhibitor at Hourglass was for
the Brookline Crafters Showcase 2008
"Cityside" from Melrose Free Press One
eye open: Art by J.J. Long chosen for J..J.
Long’s oil paintings are grounded in realism, but the final compositions
are reminiscent of the films Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly. In those
movies, actors were filmed and then, in post-production, animated. The
result is extremely life-like animation but with a surrealist quality,
as if the images were plucked from a lucid dream. That ephemeral quality of visual snapshot may be why one of Long’s paintings was featured at Gov. Deval Patrick’s North Shore inauguration reception at Merrimack College on Friday, Jan. 5. Reception organizers were soliciting local artists to display artwork of North Shore scenery at the reception. Long submitted five samples and was chosen along with 25 other artists to take part in the event. The chosen painting ‘Enchantment,’ a landscape of Spot Pond in Stoneham, captures the timelessness of nature nestled within that suburban oasis with the aspect of capricious childhood vision
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For Long, 25, a Melrose resident, his paintings are simply products of a singular vision — he has been legally blind in his left eye since birth. “It’s weird, I never really think of myself as being legally blind. Sometimes I forget because I’ve been seeing the same way since I was born,” he said. “I think it’s important to let people know this is how I see.” Long recalls a fellow artist once telling him there is a slight haze over his paintings and everything seems to be down a shade. “After she said that, I was like, ‘I think you’re right.’ I think it looks how it’s supposed to look,” he said. His impairment has become his strength, as Long translates from cornea to canvas to present a view of the world that only he can see. “You can tell it’s my work, so to speak — it might have to do with a slight haze or my shadings,” he said. “I try to paint realistically and my style is realism. I paint a lot from photographs and stuff. When I look through my left eye, I can’t discern any detail at all. “I don’t know how I’d paint with 20-20 vision. I wish someone could look through my eye and say, ‘What the hell is this?’” Interestingly, the artist with a skewed vision of reality fell into realism as his predominant style. “I just paint that way because I think back, when you’re in kindergarten or grade school, I always thought the best art was the one who makes it look the most real. They made something look as real as possible, that’s how you know how someone’s a good artist,” he said. “That’s not the way it is at all, but that’s just the way I was brought up, so to speak. I don’t favor realism over another type of art. I like all styles of art but that’s what I just kind of locked into from the beginning.” “I’ve tried abstract and love abstract, and it’s not that I can’t do it, I’ve just built up my reputation as a realism oil painter.” |
