With the recent pandemic shutting doors and postponing events, museums have sought new ways to deliver and experience art. The virtual May exhibit at Justus Fine Art Gallery will open with a virtual Gallery Walk on Friday, May 1, viewable with a link on the gallery’s website and on the website for the Hot Springs Cultural Alliance. The show will feature a selection of work pertaining to flowers by Susan Baker Chambers, Dolores Justus, Linda Palmer, Laura Raborn, Gary Simmons, Rebecca Thompson, Steven Wise, Emily Moll Wood, and others. Sculpture by Mia Hall, Robyn Horn, and Sandra Sell will also be on display, along with woodturned vessels by Gene Sparling, and original jewerly by Amanda Heinbockel and others.
The virtual Gallery Walk will be available for viewing throughout the month. Once permission to safely reopen is granted in consideration of the coronavirus precautions, Justus Fine Art Gallery will resume regular business hours. Until then, the gallery is open by appointment.
Emily Moll Wood’s unframed Flower Studies and Linda Williams Palmer’s graphite floral drawings were created during the recent period of isolation due to the COVID-19 crisis, according to a press release. Many artists have used this period of being homebound to devote more time to their work and some have discovered new directions along the way, as The Idle Class has featured in the ongoing “Quarantine Creatives” series.
“I started painting these watercolor flowers in February of this year just to become more familiar with something to teach for an upcoming workshop. I normally paint people, so painting flowers is not something that was on my radar but after experimenting for a week, I couldn’t stop painting flowers,” Wood said. “I realized it was the process of painting these flowy flowers (not the end result) that I needed. Painting them became meditative, relaxing, uplifting, and a form of therapy, especially since the global pandemic started. I found that I need to paint flowers to get through these days and I’m hoping that the results of my process can lighten and brighten someone else’s day.”
The exhibition will be on display May 1 through 30.