I stopped by the Isadore Gallery, 228 N. Prince St., during Artists’ Saturday March 29 to check out the Echo Valley Art Group show. It’s a gallery walk in itself. I had a chance to talk to two of the artists in the show, Carol Toner Shane and Reed Dixon. In the photo here, you can see examples of Shane’s work on the far wall and to the right. She started out with very colorful paintings and then blacked out large areas, creating simple, strong triangular and circular forms. She describes them as being like signs appearing out of the darkness when you’re driving at night, or even like the signs on the back of Amish buggies, with their strong graphic forms. To the left, Dixon’s fantastic flying machines, crowding bright blue skies with clouds, are actually images of wind-up toys that used to hang from his studio ceiling.
Isadore Gallery will be among the 60 (!) places opening for First Friday April 4. There will be a number of new places having shows tomorrow, including White Good & Co. Advertising, 322 N. Arch Street; DreamsCollide Studios, 7 S. Prince St.; the YWCA, 110 N. Lime St.; the Lancaster Literary Guild, 113 N. Lime St. and the White Elephant, 356 N. Queen St.
Another “first:” the Goggleworks Center for the Arts in Reading is holding a First Thursday open house tonight 5:30-8 p.m. Hot glass demonstrations, the Berks Bards poetry reading and open studios are on the schedule. Exhibits include “Truth and Beauty,” works by Lydia Panas and “Retrospective & New Work,” by Frederic Toone Bacon in the Cohen Gallery; “Geolinguistics,” an exhibit by Caroline Henderson and Susan Gottlieb, both members of the Echo Valley Art Group (they’re everywhere!), in the Rolf and Renate Schmidt Gallery; and new and vintage manga books and artwork in the VIST Financial Artist Gallery. Goggleworks is located at 201 Washington St., Reading.
Read more about First Thursdays in Reading here.
