Wednesday February 23rd 5:00-8:00 PM. “I Don’t See that Purple!”, an artist talk given by Susan Abbott at The Pitcher Inn, 275 Main St., Warren. The evening includes dinner at the inn following the lecture and slide presentation. Attendees are asked to call the inn at 802-496-6350 to make dinner reservations.

Have you looked at a painting by Monet or Matisse and wondered how they came up with the unexpected color palette – from purple to chartreuse to turquoise? Edgewater artist Susan Abbott, known nationally for her inventive and vibrant use of color, will demystify how painters employ observation, imagination and theory to select their palette and create their color compositions. With her own work and historical paintings as examples, Susan will help us “see that purple” where before we only saw grey.

To register for this event, including dinner at the Pitcher Inn, call the gallery at 802-458-0098 or email us at [email protected].
To make dinner reservations for the evening please call The Pitcher Inn at 802-496-6350.
*Attendees must show proof of vaccination and wear masks.*

Thursday March 31st 5:00-8:00 PM “Tools of the Trade”. Painter Kate Gridley will discuss her latest body of work at The Pitcher Inn, 275 Main St.,Warren. The evening includes dinner at the inn following the lecture and slide presentation. Attendees are asked to call the inn at 802-496-6350 to make dinner reservations.

Gridley’s talk will be about her process and some of the stories connected to particular paintings in this latest collection.The artist’s latest body of work focuses on antique tools, specifically a collection of tools on loan from the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury. She writes; “While meditating on A.B. Smith’s tools, I have spent months looking into the beauties of form and function, diverse edges and patinas, the interplay of objects and shadows, that beautiful and mysterious realm of objective versus abstraction.

There are stories in the patinas of the tools that I got to know so well during the pandemic. I react to shapes, colors and shadows. I ponder the possibilities that necessitated the fabrication and use of handmade tools: the hands that held them, the bodies and minds that sweated, hammered, plowed, drilled, harvested, hauled, and cut in order to construct lives and alter a world.”

To register for this event, including dinner at the Pitcher Inn, call the gallery at 802-458-0098 or email us at [email protected].
To make dinner reservations for the evening please call The Pitcher Inn at 802-496-6350.
*Attendees must show proof of vaccination and wear masks.*

About the artists:

Susan Abbott grew up in Washington DC and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art and Masters of Fine arts from the institute’s Hoffberger School of Painting where she studied under renowned abstract painter Grace Hartigan. Twenty five years ago, Abbott fell in love with Vermont. She has lived and painted here since. Her still life and landscape paintings have been included in exhibitions nationally including at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Hood College and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Susan Abbott’s work is held in both private and public collections including the Gund Company, Mead Data Central and Oprah Winfrey. She is an experienced and sought after painting teacher who holds workshops throughout the US and abroad.

Katie Runde holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University College Cork and a Masters in Religious studies from the University of Chicago. She is a painter, muralist, jazz saxophonist and minister and can truly be called a Renaissance woman. After living in Rochester New York and Canada, Runde moved to Vermont ten years ago, and more recently relocated to Middlebury. She describes Vermont as having a culture that supports integrity.

Kate Gridley has her studio in Middlebury Vermont and calls herself a conceptual realist. She is a skilled portrait and still life painter whose portrait of the Honorable Governor Jim Douglas hangs in the Vermont State House. After graduating from Williams College, Gridley studied painting in New York and then Florence Italy where her focus was on renaissance painting techniques. Her work is held in public and private collections and can be seen at the Vermont State House, the New Hampshire State House, the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington DC, the Middlebury College Museum of Art, and Norwich University, among others. Gridley’s illustrations have appeared in numerous publications.