On Friday, I walked into CAP ArtSpace and was immediately struck by radiant lines of orange, magenta and teal. Lauren Reid’s oil painting, “Interconnected,” hung directly ahead of the gallery’s entryway. Her canvas depicted a striking collage of neon faces and bodies, making it difficult to focus on each part of the piece, yet still captivating.
“I love colors,” Reid said. “[This piece] really captures what my art’s about. It shows that I’m influenced by everything that I am part of. It means everything to me.”
The exhibit at CAP ArtSpace, an art gallery in Ithaca Commons, served as a kick-off event for the Greater Ithaca Art Trail, a community of over 50 artists from Tompkins County. The Art Trail planned their season kick-off during Ithaca Gallery Night, a monthly event where galleries around Tompkins County open their venues to local artists.
40 artists from the Art Trail shared samples of their art for this exhibit. Around the room, I watched as people of all ages observed paintings, etchings, photography and more. Speaking to some of these gallery-goers, they said that many Ithaca locals use Ithaca Gallery Night as a way to go out with their loved ones and see great art.
Artist Cai Quirk appreciated the crowd that Ithaca Gallery Night brought to the exhibit, and said that the opportunity to share their art was meaningful. Throughout the event, I saw them speak passionately to people about their art and the messages they hoped to convey.
“In making work around queerness and celebrating queerness, it’s important to me that a variety of people get to see [my art] — more than just people who are already supportive or already who are queer,” Quirk said. “Group shows are a place to help people who might be growing in their support of queerness expand even further.”
Quirk shared a digital print on fabric titled “Jesse Prayer Hands,” which they hoped audiences would be drawn to and would serve as a good “entry point” to some of their other work. The piece pictures an intricate mosaic, reminiscent of stained glass, illustrating a person closing their eyes and clasping their hands together as if in prayer. The piece felt larger than life in that I felt I could never fully explore its every meaning.
On the other side of the room, Jennifer Byrd Rubacky’s photograph of Cascadilla Gorge Trail reminded viewers of what lay beyond the walls of CAP ArtSpace’s gallery. Her photograph seemed straightforward, but I could feel a resonant importance behind its simplicity.
Rubacky’s husband, Chris Rubacky, attended the event and marveled at the variety of art pieces displayed in the exhibit. He seemed genuinely happy to be surrounded by artists and art-lovers. While he said he loved that people enjoyed his wife’s photograph, what he loved even more was being able to see everyone enjoying all of the different types of art.
“It’s all too cool,” Chris Rubacky said. “If I had the budget, I’d buy $5,000 worth [of the artwork here].”
Robin Schwartz, program director for the Community Art Partnership of Tompkins County, headed the event. Schwartz said her job holds the same feeling of enveloping camaraderie as “hanging out in the band room” in high school — I could see the energy she was referencing as she waved “Hellos” and it seemed as though everyone in the room knew her name. She smiled warmly while introducing artists and was eager to show off the variety of local artwork around the room.
“Performing artists, like musicians, have a network and they’re invited to perform. But visual artists and writers generally work in isolation,” Schwartz said. “It’s important for artists to be able to show their work and it’s important for the people in the community to have a place to go see that.”
Varsha Bhargava is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].