The Janice Elkins Gallery at 149 Harrison St. has been rented out for the month of December by a group of over a dozen women artists for a special Christmas extravaganza of arts and crafts. The show, “Out of the Box,” includes the work of four Oak Park painters, as well as an enormous variety of crafts, focusing on smaller items that might make good gifts.
The crafts include an extensive selection of jewelry and Christmas tree ornaments, ceramics by Kristi Sloniger and Linda Hillman, and painted silk and velvet scarves by Kate Wester. Sandra Schwarzbeck does interesting work, in which she fuses pieces of colored glass, cut into geometric shapes, onto surfaces. The switch plates are particularly playful and lively, but she also does watches and jewelry.
Julia O’Malley’s purses and bottles are both spectacular and unusual. They are covered with intricate patterns of colored beads in various sizes and shapes to add a textural component. All of the beads are pretty tiny; each one is individually threaded and then stitched onto a purse in groups of two or three. One purse would have to include many thousands of these beads. It’s very easy to believe her when she says it takes an entire year to make just one purse.
Jan Anderson’s paintings were inspired by a trip to Hawaii, where she saw traditional quilts sewn by Hawaiian women. They have a somewhat unusual feel to them, because they focus on floral and organic forms, which normally flow very fluidly. But in Anderson’s work, the organic forms are caught up in very formal, geometric designs, with very precise checkers behind them.
Mary Jo Parker O’Hearn’s focus is on women, and her work has a very old-fashioned appeal to it. In “Advice,” a very proper older woman wearing formal white gloves, pearls and a hat is reaching toward the ear of a younger woman, as if to give advice. Part of the old-fashioned quality comes from the clothing, but there’s also a certain amount of surprise from a modern perspective that a younger woman might turn to an older woman like this.
Carol Richardson O’Brien is known in Oak Park for her house portraits. Her Frank Lloyd Wright works sell at the Home and Studio and other local venues. But the pieces she’s exhibiting in this show all have a distinctly foreign flavor to them: “Cottage in East Anglia,” “Bawsdy Manor,” and “Hall of Ciestrain” (a strikingly modest building for a hall) are examples.
Brenda Watkins does landscapes, but a unique feature of her paintings is an emphasis on the sky and weather conditions, stemming from her longtime interest in weather lore. The sky can take up over half of a painting, with carefully detailed cloud formations and beautifully colored sunsets. It’s as if the atmosphere itself is coming to life.
The “Out of the Box” exhibit will continue through Dec. 23 at the Janice Elkins Gallery, 149 Harrison St. On Christmas week, it will be open every day except Christmas Eve for last minute gift purchases, on Monday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m.
E-mail Anna Poplawska at oplawska@comcast.net
