Wednesday, June 22, 2022

Leighton Art Center - Coal Opening

The "Coal in Alberta" show by Monochrome Guild members Fred Braakman, Nigel Goldup, Arturo Pianzola, Court Smith and myself opened at the Leighton Art Center near Calgary on June 18th.  
Hailey had to stay in Edmonton to go to work but Margarit, Annelise and Helena joined me out at the cottage in Nordegg on the evening of Friday June 17th.
We all hit the road on Saturday morning for the 3+ hour drive to Leighton.  It was a pleasant day, mostly sunny, with some nice clouds in the sky.  We arrived at the gallery at about 1:30 in the afternoon.  The gallery staff were great to deal with and very friendly and helpful.  They did a great job installing the show and the prints look fantastic.
The Leighton Art Center is the former home of Alfred Leighton, a relatively famous Canadian landscape painter, and his wife Barbara, also an artist.  It is a beautiful location high in foothills south of Calgary, overlooking a broad sweep of the Rocky Mountains.  The living room in the home has a large fireplace and big windows overlooking the mountains.  It is an exhibit space that includes furnishings and possessions of the Leightons, as well as some of their art.  The main gallery space is in a large room that I suspect was once the dining room.  It has several smaller windows, some skylights, and great track lighting.  Twenty Five of our Twenty Nine prints were displayed in here, and four overflowed into the adjacent hallway.
I'm glad that we decided to use the rather costly Museum Glass to display our prints.  This glass is water clear, has UV protection, but mostly it almost entirely eliminates reflections.  The lighting in the gallery is really good, but there are several windows and a couple of skylights in the gallery space.  From certain viewing angles the glass picks up reflections, but for the most part it is reflection free.
Arturo and his wife Sharon were also out for the opening.  Arturo and I were asked to make some remarks to the guests in attendance.  The gallery staff advised us that by mid-afternoon they had 63 guests at the opening.  I think a few more may have arrived after that.  A shower had rolled through about 2:30 in the afternoon but that cleared and the sun busted out and we were able to make our remarks to the group outdoors on a deck.  We were also interviewed by a reporter from the Okotoks Western Wheel newspaper.
By about 4:30 we all wound things down and hit the road.  The girls and I drove back to Nordegg and Arturo and Sharon headed for Edmonton.  It was a great day and we were really pleased with how well the opening went.  The exhibit will be on display for nine weeks, until August 21st.  Hopefully a lot more people get to see it.
The girls have been able to come to gallery openings with me in the past, but only when they have been close to home, in the Edmonton area.  This was the first time that they were able to travel with me to an out-of-town gallery.  It great to have them there for company, and support.  An early Father's Day gift...!
























No comments: