October at Sutter Creek Gallery: Mary Sue Palmquist

Mary Sue Palmquist, the October featured artist at Sutter Creek Gallery, discovered a love of artistic expression in a high school art class with a daily lesson of portrait drawing.  In college, she majored in art, attending Ripon College and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design studying printmaking, graphic arts and typography, all before the advent of computers.  In 1983, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in art from Rockford College with an emphasis in watercolor.

Before Palmquist could follow her passion for art further, she took over managing the family business, an historic theater in Rockford, Illinois, used for performing arts performances, meanwhile taking evening classes in painting and calligraphy.  After 18 years she went on to pursue the study of art therapy in a master’s program which led to teaching art in an after-school program until she moved to California in 2005.

She then took up her paintbrushes and began studying watercolor under the tutelage of Sabina Turner, a local professional artist, as well as taking workshops and entering art shows and the local fair.  Palmquist is primarily a watercolorist but enjoys melding various mediums to create texture and bring abstraction into her work.  Lately, her favorite subjects are old buildings and old photographs.  “There’s so much story in them,” she says, “that I love to imagine the essence of what was going on.”

Palmquist is a member of the Sutter Creek Gallery, and is one of twenty artists represented by the gallery located at 40 Main Street in the heart of Sutter Creek,  open Thursday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  On display are original paintings of all types, photographs, prints and cards, jewelry, pottery and gourds.  Custom matting and framing services are also available.  For additional information, call 209-267-0228, email suttercreekgallery@gmail.com, or visit www.suttercreekgallery.com.

October at Gallery 10: Wendy Rogers

Wendy Rogers is an award-winning painter and blogger with work in private collections throughout the country. She paints in Fiddletown, at Fiddlesong Studio, her hideaway in a wild corner of Amador County.  Using careful drawings and a limited palette of transparent hues, she often enhances her watercolor paintings with layers of colored pencil.  Wendy loves crisply defining sepia lines that play against soft washes of glowing light, enhancing depth and adding a sense of mystery to her watercolor and acrylic paintings. Her love of the natural world that surrounds her and of animals, and birds, sparkles in her work.

Gallery 10 is delighted to offer Wendy’s collection of paintings for October. As Featured Artist, Wendy’s work will hang all of October at Gallery 10, 15 Eureka St., open Thursday-Monday, 11-5 P.M.

October at Sutter Creek Gallery: Abstract Artist Curtis Stromme

Abstract artist Curtis Stromme goes his own way when creating acrylic paintings:  The artworks are untitled, allowing viewers to provide their own interpretation and connection to the artwork.  Unmatted pieces are surrounded by simple chrome frames so as not to detract from the art, which makes the paintings seem “to go on into infinity,” he explains.  Rather than using canvas, Stomme paints on paper, layering the acrylic with blocks—not brushes—to create his vivid compositions.  Sutter Creek Gallery will feature this unique artist during the month of October.  

Despite occasional excursions into representational art, inspired by numerous trips to Portugal, Stromme realized quite early that creating acrylic abstract paintings was what brought him pleasure.  He starts with a background color, then applies additional paints that skid across the surface and sometimes collide with those added earlier.  The layers create a textural surface while metallic swirls, circles and lines add vivacity.  Stromme says that “knowing when to stop is the most difficult part of painting,” which many artists can agree with.  He also produces what he calls art trading cards.  These 2.5 x 3.5-inch abstracts are painted on mat board.  Some of these cards come mounted on paper and can be framed for display.  

Sutter Creek Gallery will host a reception in Stromme’s honor on Saturday, October 2, starting at 2 p.m., at 40 Main Street, Sutter Creek.  Besides original paintings and photography, the gallery offers many affordable items including prints, cards, jewelry, pottery, gourds and fiber arts as well as custom matting and framing.  The gallery is open Thursday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.  For additional information, call 209-267-0228, email suttercreekgallery@gmail.com, or visit www.suttercreekgallery.com.

Teal & Red

Trading Card