Winter Blues Exhibit - February 2022

Of equal appeal to all, blue is the color of sea and sky, of loyalty and commitment, and of the inner reaches of the human psyche. It conjures a complex mixture of emotions, of music, of serenity, of constancy, and of the period of time we call winter during which we humans use the cold and dark for retrospection and regeneration.  

In RiverArts’ Winter Blues exhibit, it is possible to represent in paintings, photos, and sculpture many of the aspects of the color that make it simultaneously calming and mysterious.  

This show is co-curated by Barbara Parker, a longtime member of the local arts community both as a painter and musician, and by Matt Meilnick, the new Director of The Mainstay in Rock Hall. 

Barbara Parker has been a painter since the 1990’s, starting out painting landscapes and still life and eventually finding a calling in abstracts.

“What appeals to me about abstract painting is the instantly visceral response to feelings, in color, and to texture that is possible at the point of laying a brush on canvas. It is language without words, a manifestation of feelings that are sometimes outside the scope of words.”

Living and working in Worton, Barbara is a long-time member of the local arts community as a painter, a singer/songwriter and performer. 

Matt hails from Utica, New York, but has moved to Kent County full time to assume leadership of the Mainstay and to become a vibrant member of our larger arts community. He is a musician, a published author of fiction and non-fiction and a licensed Therapist who has worked with special needs children for twenty years. But his first love is presenting live music. He will be arranging for a presentation of blues music at the opening on February 4.

“I always thought blue was the most powerful of colors, the most elastic. You can’t reach any higher than the blue sky. And yet a case of the blues brings one to a depth populated by heartbreak, heartache and hard-asses. The musical idiom of the blues somehow gives us a groove in which to sail through such difficult waters.”

EXHIBITION DATES: February 4th through February 27th

PICK UP: Sunday, February 27, 1:00 – 3:00 pm and Monday, February 28th, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm

Winter Blues People's Choice winner: Blue Bay, an original paper collage by Ann Crane Harlan.