Introduction:
In Spring 2024, I was honored to be selected for a solo exhibition by the Lexington Art League entitled, “Prismatic.” The exhibition was located in the Lillian Boyer Gallery within the impressive Louden House, one of the best -examples of Gothic Revival architecture in Kentucky. The Boyer Gallery is an absolutely lovely room with spacious white walls and impressive floor to ceiling windows that let in tons of natural light. This was my first solo exhibition, and their helpful, friendly staff (Faville, Lori, Robbie and Stephanie) helped ease my anxieties and teach a “newbie” the ropes. For instance, they helped me appreciate what is standard gallery height to hang my paintings and shared tricks of the trade to keep paintings straight on the wall. More than that, each of them made me feel unique and special and a true artist- perhaps the greatest gift of all to me. The show opened on February 9th and went through April 6th. I was encouraged to be there in person on three occasions - (1) opening night, (2) an artist’s talk, and (3) the LexArts Hop night. On this page, I will describe each of these events, as well as my experiences leading up to the show and afterward.
Coming up with the Theme:
The “Prismatic” exhibition was actually my second time applying for a show with the Lexington Art League. My first attempt was rejected, possibly because lacked a unifying theme except that all of my pieces were geometric abstract paintings. For “Prismatic”, I decided to focus on paintings that explored the visible color spectrum by laying down prisms (or rainbows) on canvas. I’ve always liked “ombre” paintings where one color just transitions into the next, and I believe there is no greater opportunity to blend one color to another than the full visible spectrum of a prism. Rainbows can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but for me, they represent beauty, optimism, and hope. These prism paintings came out of me at a time in my life when I was emerging from a professional trial that threatened my entire career and challenged every bit of optimism in me. Much like natural rainbows appear in the sky after a storm, these prism paintings were born from despair and bleakness, representing a way to put badness behind me and moving on with hope.
Application Process:
The application was a two-step process: an online form to which you attach images of your work, then a meeting with Faville Donahue, the Assistant Director of the Lexington Art League, to show her your work in person. This can either be at your studio or at the Louden House, which is the administrative home of the League. At the time I first applied for the show, I had about 10 rainbow paintings already done. I chose to bring my paintings to the Louden House, and found Faville working in the kitchen area, preparing for an event with another woman from the Art League. I brought in my paintings from the car, and we discussed the pieces, prism theme, and my technique. I remember the other woman commenting on how “Rainbow Millepede” reminded her of a molecular heat map, and I was surprised by the scientific reference. Our meeting lasted about 15 minutes, and it ended with both Faville and the other lady complimenting my work. After walking away feeling positive from the interaction, I found out several weeks later that I was one of the artists chosen for a 2024 solo exhibition, and some time after that that I’d be in the Boyer Gallery - the most coveted space in the Louden House.
Painting a lot of Rainbows:
My wife Sarah and I had been to the Louden House for several LexArts Hops events in the past, so I was familiar with the Boyer Gallery and absolutely thrilled to be assigned to such an impressive and well-lit space. But that thrilling feeling soon gave way to the realization that the gallery is big and bright and impressive and now I was tasked with filling l it up with rainbow paintings! After Faville provided us a floor plan that gave the dimensions of the walls, I quickly realized my ten paintings wouldn’t be nearly enough. I had about 6 months until my exhibition would open, so I got to work on doing more and more rainbow paintings. This was a time of definite artistic growth for me, as I learned how to incorporate textures and impasto into my pieces in ways I thought made sense. I also learned how to incorporate circles into my grids, and how to get clean edges between the different color blocks even when the lines were circular rather than straight (my goal is always crisp borders without paint bleed). The ideas kept coming, and I made time around my professional duties to keep the paintings coming. In fact, a few months into the process, I got the idea to do a 3-D piece, so I bought a 15 in x 15 in x 15 in wood cube from a vendor on Etsy and decided to do a prism piece on a cube. That ended up being one of the show’s highlights and one of my most commented-on pieces. In the end, “Prismatic” consisted of 35 total pieces (34 paintings on canvas and the Rainbow Cube).
Installation:
Since “Prismatic” was my first solo art show, I really didn’t know what to expect for installation. I learned from Faville that the artist hangs his/her/their own pieces usually, but that she would help if needed. At the onset, I wasn’t sure paintings in galleries are hung– would we be nailing into walls or using command strips or what? I was told to put wires on the back of each, and Sarah and I arrived, paintings in hand with a few tools we brought ourselves (a level, measuring tapes, a drill gun and my grandfather’s hammer). We learned that we would hang the paintings on nails that we ourselves hammered into the wall. There were few surprises, and the Louden House had an art hanging cart with tools, measuring tapes, and nails. We had mixed up one of the wall dimensions with another in our PowerPoint plan, so we just swapped the paintings on our curation plan from those two walls. I got there before Sarah so I brought in the paintings and gently rested them on the floor against the wall they were to be hung on. Only then did I finally realize that yes, I had painted enough to be appropriate for the exhibition space. What we soon learned was just how much math went into the hanging process – how to divide a wall into three, how to center paintings of unequal dimension, and how to keep everything focused at the “gallery height” of 60 inches from the floor.
Installing “Prismatic” at the Louden House, 2/6/24
(panoramic view below)
Curating the Show:
Sarah is a gifted organizer, and she volunteered to help me figure out how we would arrange the paintings in the show. We measured the dimensions of each painting, considered which paintings might look appropriate next to each other and in what orientations, and developed a plan for how they should be arranged based on the dimensions of each wall space in the gallery’s floor plan sent to us by Faville. Our living room was the staging area for this, possibly because it is the most well-lit space in our house and because we could bring all 35 pieces there and keep them there without too much bother until the show started. Sarah was an amazing curator. She developed a PowerPoint schematic so we could predict how paintings would actually look in relation to each other scaled to the dimensions of the room. This was invaluable because instead of walking into a large room with 35 paintings and starting from scratch, on the day of installation we walked in prepared with a plan that required only minor deviations in real time.
Opening Night:
The show formally opened on a February Friday afternoon, from 5 - 8 pm. I had no idea what to expect, but I realized that a lot of my friends and family knew about the show and many had told me ahead of time that they wanted to come to support me. The reality of the evening far exceeded my expectations! I estimate that between 75-100 people came for opening night. The Louden House actually set up a wine bar in the Boyer Gallery, so the atmosphere was relaxed and casual. Colleagues from work, my daughter and her friends from school, friends and family showed up, some of my patients surprised me by being there, and I got introduced to a lot of people who support the arts in Lexington. I was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of support and positive comments, and six paintings sold on opening night. It was a validating and marvelous experience – a once in a lifetime kind of night. A night that witnessed what a terrific community I live in and proved to me that art has the capacity to bring us together in ways that are hard to predict or describe.
Artist Talk:
About 3 weeks into the exhibition, I was asked to give an artist talk on an early Saturday afternoon in late February. Again, I really didn’t know what to expect as far as who would be there or what I should talk about or how long it should be, but fortunately YouTube had many videos provided by artists who gave their insights into how to give a presentation about artwork. So I came prepared to talk a little about me but a lot more about the art. My YouTube “mentors” pointed out that people like to hear stories about art, so that’s what I planned to do. On our way over to the Louden House, I asked Sarah (my wife) “how many people do you think will be here?”, and she responded with “three- You, me and some random person who just happens to be visiting the gallery today”. We had a laugh, and I agreed with her until we pulled into the Louden House’s long driveway and were absolutely shocked to see it packed with cars parked everywhere. Sarah looked at me and I at her, and we thought “well maybe Art League members show up for these talks?” So, we found a place to park (kind of faraway), and gathered our thoughts as we approached the Louden House. We opened the door, and walked in, and… no one was there. Only one person staffing the front desk area. Confused, I asked the person “why are all those cars out front?”, and she told me “oh, there’s a basketball camp going on in the building behind ours.” Sarah and I just laughed (isn’t life wonderful in its capacity to continuously teach humility!). In the end, about 8 or 9 people showed up, and I tried my best to tell them a little something about myself, how I got inspired to do the prism series, and walked them through some of the individual paintings.
Some Unintended Marketing:
I never really intended for the news of my art show to get out to my work community. In fact, I felt nervous that people would discover this aspect of my personal life, wondering about the potential concern over conflict of effort with my primary job as an academic pediatrician. What I learned through the process, however, was that art shows are public forums, and galleries and venues are in the business of not keeping them a secret. On the contrary – advertisements and announcements went out by email and in the community paper, and word spread from there. Then, when it was noticed by work colleagues, people thought “how interesting and unusual for a physician scientist to be doing this,” and it spread even more. My friend and colleague Dr. Tom Collins, who serves as Vice Chair for Faculty Development in the Department of Pediatrics, sent out an email to the faculty in the spirit of an example of how to achieve work-life balance. The story got picked up by the public relations people in the College of Medicine and at the University, and although I had no desire to self-promote, I agreed to a biographical in the daily University newsletter that goes out to all faculty and staff at UK. I reasoned that if anyone else could benefit from hearing about how painting helped me through a crisis, then I should not suppress that story. I sat down with Hayden Gooding, the friendly journalist who interviewed me, and Mark Cornelison, the UK photographer, at the Louden house and in my basement art studio. The piece came out on March 13th, two days before the LexArts Hop event at Louden House. I suspect that much of the robust turnout for Hop evening was due to the story
LexArts Hop (Gallery Hop)
Since the early 90’s, the Lexington arts scene has hosted an event known as LexArts Hop every other month on the third Friday of the month. On these evenings, dozens of galleries and art venues offer extended hours, hosting artists and offering refreshments to encourage dialogue and interactions between artists, gallerists, and the public. This night was extra special for me because my Mom, Dad and younger sister Pamela, flew up from Florida to see the exhibit and spend time with Sarah, Julia and me. In fact, this was my family’s first time visiting Lexington since the COVID pandemic started. Again, Louden House set up a wine and refreshments bar in the Boyden Gallery, and again the community turned up to share my art with me. Easily more than 100 people came during the 3 hours I was there, with some people returning from opening night, and others for the first time. Four of my physician partners in pediatric hematology/oncology came, as did several other coworkers from my clinic. At least half a dozen research colleagues were there, all providing me with warm support. Carla, my personal therapist who helped me overcome my anxiety about having a show in the first place, showed up unexpectedly. In fact, I wouldn’t have even put myself out there to apply for an exhibition were it not for her encouragement. As more and more people showed up, three more paintings sold, and some reporter from LexArts interviewed me, and although I lost my voice from talking so much and socializing and rejoicing with friends, it was like a dream come true. Not for the joy of the event, but because painting - and painting rainbows in particular - represented personal resilience and recovery from a professional betrayal. I was finally moving on with my life, and the broader artistic community was there to welcome me. When asked “what was being there on Gallery Hop Night like for you?”, all I could think of was that it was like going to your own funeral memorial service but being around to hear the nice things people had to say about you.
Reflections after the exhibition
So here I am, an amateur artist with one good solo show behind me, having had a wonderful experience sharing what I hope are perceived as joyful paintings with my community. I’ve no idea where this art journey will take me, but I’m happy to go along for the ride. It’s still hard for me to believe that painting has become so much a part of who I currently am, or that the Art League selected my work for display or that my community would turn out to support me the way they did. These paintings were born from personal tragedy, and they represent a creative attempt to deal with despair. More than anything else, what I hope people take from my art is that it’s a story of personal resilience, for nothing says hope and optimism like a rainbow. When the installation was complete, and indeed every time I walked into the Boyer Gallery with my exhibition up, I paused and took it all in and realized that for me, this was about personal growth and rebirth. Painting these pictures one-by-one in my small basement studio (actually an old dining room table with makeshift lights next to a rickety art cart and a sink), I never got a sense of how they would all fit together. Each would be carefully wrapped in parchment paper and put into a closet, and I’d move on to the next idea of how to put a rainbow on canvas (or a cube). But seeing all 35 of them up in an absolutely stunning gallery space gave meaning to the art. “Wow, now they make sense and they have something to say.” I will forever be grateful to everyone who helped make “Prismatic” the profound experience it was for me.
