The Melrose Messenger

On Display at Follow Your Art: “The Little Things”

By Ellen Putnam

This month, visitors to the first floor gallery space at Follow Your Art Community Studios (FYACS) will see an exhibition of members' work called “The Little Things.” Anyone can become a member of FYACS, and members include everyone from professional artists who have studio space at The Big Yellow House to kids who take classes there. This month's show represents a wide range of styles and media, with each artist presenting their own interpretation of the show’s theme.

Sara Gravante, the Gallery Coordinator at FYACS, said that, for her, “the shows that reflect our community are the nicest. One of the happiest things for me is when I see my students’ work on the walls.” (Gravante offers classes for both children and adults at FYACS.)

Gravante herself submitted two paintings in her signature style: acrylics with bold colors and lines depicting lush scenes in nature. “For me,” she explained, “the little things are walks in the woods. Things in nature I celebrate, that make me happy.” One of her pieces captures leaves in the wood in the early part of fall, when just a few leaves were beginning to turn; the second shows the reflections of leaves in a pond.

Judy Rosenbaum, who usually works strictly in abstract, non-figurative painting, created two more representative works for this exhibition: one piece called “Beachgrass” and another called “Wintertime Blues.” “It’s a long process,” she said of her work. “I add a lot of layers before I get to what I want, and when I finally find it, I hone in on it. It keeps changing and evolving. I see each painting as solving a puzzle,” Rosenbaum went on, “I look for what’s missing, to get the final result.”

The two pieces that Rosenbaum submitted for this exhibition were loosely inspired by looking at the ocean from Crane Beach (in the case of “Beachgrass”), and by the sight of the trees in her backyard (for “Wintertime Blues”), although neither is a strict recreation of a scene from life. The “little things” in Rosenbaum's work - an initially accidental streak of paint that ended up adding texture to the finished product, or little bits of sparkly paint that created a snowy effect - are what add richness and dimension to Rosenbaum's paintings.

Tamara Kenney, who is well known in Melrose for her dress alterations and remaking - she will, for example, make a new reception dress out of an heirloom wedding dress - submitted work from her past - a ceramic owl she made in middle school, and a doll she made at a time when she was making dolls regularly. The members exhibition provides the opportunity for artists like Kenney, who usually work according to clients' specifications, to show off their own ideas and creativity as well.

This was Austin Frakt’s first art show, and he shared that he has been working in his chosen medium, india ink on paper, for less than a year. “I wasn’t interested in it until I was,” he said. His pieces are contrasting: one with fine, intricate lines, and another with more amorphous, translucent shapes to create the effect of smoke.

Casey Grote works mainly in linocut and reduction linocut print, which they took up during the pandemic. One of their pieces, “Just the two of us,” depicts a unicorn and a snail; Grote explained that they were inspired by the tapestry, “Unicorn in Captivity.”

The reduction linocut print process Grote used to create the piece, they explained, involved carving parts out of the linoleum plate, one layer for each color on the piece, for a total of 9 or 10 layers. In the reduction process, the plate is completely destroyed, which makes each piece, Grote said, “a truly limited edition.” “It’s a really flexible medium,” Grote said of linocut, “and it lets you do some cool atmospheric effects.”

“It took me weeks,” Grote added. “I was really in the zone.”

Sally Bowman Gordon had some of the tiniest “little things” on display: she was showing two pieces from a series she’s working on called “Mitzvah Mice.” The series are handmade paper collages, although her sculpted acrylic works are also familiar to Melrose audiences.

“There’s quite a few in the series,” Bowman explained, “all depicting the mice doing different good deeds, like love of study, love of all creatures.” The piece called, “Joy of Teaching!” Gordon added, is actually modeled on the class she teaches at FYACS for four, five, and six year olds called Art and Science. “That’s my happy place,” she said, “so I had to do a collage with my little mice.” While the details in the background of the piece look like they must have been painted, Gordon explains that they are all collage, down to the tiny books on the bookshelf.

Two very young artists had their work on display as well: Flint Athreya was showing “Floating Legacy,” which depicts a fantastical landscape with islands floating in the sky; while Hazel Kesner displayed an ocean scene featuring a sea turtle and other sea creatures.

This month's members exhibition offers viewers a sampling of names that are familiar on the Melrose art scene and some new ones; and a combination of artists' signature styles and experimentation with new ideas and media.

“The Little Things” will be on display at Follow Your Art through the end of March. The Gallery is open to the public Monday-Friday from 10am to 6pm and Saturday from 10am to 1pm.

Posted March 5th, 2025