Martinez Tribune The website of the Martinez Tribune.
By E. CLARK
Martinez Tribune
MARTINEZ, Calif. – Martinez is one step closer to becoming an art destination with the opening of a new members-only gallery on Main Street this Saturday.
Main Street Art, 613 Main St., will host a soft opening from 2-8 p.m. May 14, to showcase to the public the works of several area artists specializing in everything from glass blowing to acrylic paint and sculpture.
Featured artists will include members Bonnie Fry, Gwenn Spratt, Jerry Hild, Lynne McManus, Mimi Wirth, Nancy Robinson, Pamela McCauley, Stanley Satchell, Warren Rose, Jeremy Goodson, Paul Craig and contributor Denise Hillman – many of whom are also members of the longstanding Martinez Gallery on Court Street.
“We’re not in competition (with Martinez Gallery), we’re in collaboration, so we’re going to support each other,” said Robinson, one of the founding members of Main Street Art.
“This will serve as an alternative,” said Satchell, a figurative sculptor. “It is primarily upscale art, and we’ll do a few things to encourage new collectors.”
That encouragement will include free entry to the gallery, and an assortment of smaller pieces the gallery hopes will embolden art enthusiasts to begin collecting. The gallery will also host demonstrations from time to time, and serve as an educational resource – or as Satchell put it, “We’re all artists. We give free advice!”
The gallery talents range in age and experience, and in years dedicated to their crafts.
Robinson said she’s been painting since age 14, when her mother entered her into a class. “She took me to all the different art schools in Los Angeles, where I grew up, and I’ve just been painting ever since,” Robinson said. She retired 20 years ago after a lengthy career in nursing, and has been giving special attention to her acrylic painting since that time.
Satchel said he’s been sculpting 15-20 years.
“I saw a painting that I wanted to see as a sculpture, but I didn’t know how to sculpt. And I knew that the piece wasn’t around, and if I were to purchase it, it’d be costing me out of this world. So I wanted to do it myself.”
Satchel said his first piece “was a mess,” but that he fell in love with the process. “Putting the pieces together, articulation, form and rhythm … all that caught me,” Satchell said.
Another member, Hild, who works in glass, is a relative newcomer to his chosen art form, having begun blowing and sculpting glass approximately eight years ago. The idea of the art, however, has been with him for over six decades.
“I can remember all the way back to when Disneyland opened in 1955. I saw the glass blowers there working these little glass animals, and it’s always stuck in my mind,” Hild said.
“Then when I retired, I had these glass rods laying around up at a ranch that I had, and I just heated them up with a welding torch and started doing stuff like that,” he said.
Hild began visiting glass stores and buying the appropriate tools, making pieces for family and friends and eventually selling his work at arts & crafts shows. In fact, he was “discovered” at his booth by the Martinez Gallery at the Sunday Farmers Market on Main Street about five years ago, and went on to become co-director at the Court Street gallery.
Hild’s pieces, many of which are made from stoplight glass, are featured in a window display at the new Main Street Art gallery. He shapes the red, yellow and blue glass into decorative vases and bowls. “The red turns a little milky when it’s heated up, so I don’t use too much of that,” Hild said. “And you’d think the stoplights use green glass, but it’s actually blue. It just shines green when it lights up,” he explained.
Hild will also have a collection of jewelry on display at the gallery.
Exhibits at Main Street Art will be switched out every two months, and the gallery plans to participate in the downtown Art Beat events whenever possible. Those wishing to purchase art will find a wide range of prices and styles from hobbyists and professionals alike.
“It’s going to be very special,” Satchell said. “We hope to get a lot of people through.”
