Remembering Why

She was six, sweet and showed me the future in a six-by-six sketch of love.

Ila Elizabeth stopped by the gallery last evening for ArtWalk.  She wasn’t on the hunt for something to eat or drink.  She strolled in to see the art.  She didn’t simply glance either.  She studied each piece and was quick to tell her aunt what she saw and felt.  I saw something special in her, but I didn’t see the future until she came back after dinner, holding her drawing, wanting to share her creation.

It was love, captured in pencil, by a super power in her special brain, and all I wanted to do was hug her.  She reminded me why my own world is consumed by art — creating it, sharing it and encouraging others to do the same, making a space so artists can use their special powers to enhance life and stir emotion.

She is our future, and there is hope for a world when love can be found in the heart and passed through a pencil, creating a lasting image that feels like a hug.

Thank you, Ila.  Here’s a little me with a big hug for you.

 

A Gallery For Everyone

I opened a gallery, and I want you to feel comfortable coming in to enjoy it.

Sure, the ultimate compliment for an artist is for someone to purchase his or her art, but I want everyone to feel comfortable just coming in to East End Gallery to enjoy art.  Tell us what you like and how it makes you feel.  Grab a cup of coffee, sit awhile.  Look, and I mean really look, at the works of 28 local and regional artists.  Hopefully, you will leave with a little more bounce in your step . . . because, well, art can have that effect.

I partnered with two others to connect artists with art lovers, utilizing the Blue Title space located behind Shades Bar and Grill on the east end of 30a, in Inlet Beach, and after the 60 works were hung, chosen from over 130 submissions, a new artist contacted me in the hopes of inclusion.  I requested her biography, and what she wrote made me realize that this is why I do whatever I can to help promote artists.  She said, “I am going to be perfectly honest.  It was the first time I’ve ever sat down to write an artist bio, and I’ll admit that it took all day and lots of editing and erasing!” This I can relate to!  “There is just so much to say, and ended up not getting anywhere remotely close to what I would’ve like.  So many emotions tied into what I do.”

Emotions.  Her bio was filled with them, and I immediately connected with her, probably because I feel the same way.  Art is our way of expressing our emotions, baring our souls, fearing the worst — that no one will like our art and thus us.  Yet we do it because we must.  Art heals.  

So she will have a space at East End, and I hope it propels her art beyond her imagination.  And I hope you will stop in for a visit and enjoy it.

No purchase required.

East End Gallery, 10952 E Co Hwy 30A, Suite B, Inlet Beach, FL  32461

Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Saturdays by appointment