Organically But Intentionally, the aMuse Gallery Grows in Chatham
When Janice and Rick Patterson met on the set of a video shoot in the '80s, the chemistry between the two was unmistakable. He was a rangy sound engineer and she a striking segment producer and skilled photographer.
After they had their first child, they came to a house in Columbia County, first for weekends and later to live full time. It was a former cider mill with an adjacent churchyard, right in the center Old Chatham. Rick continued to travel the world working on documentary films while Janice stayed upstate and became an interior designer, operating from a tiny, unheated house with great bones.
Over time, she attracted clients from throughout the state, and she planned to move her business to the Greek Revival house they had purchased on Railroad Avenue in Chatham Village. But Janice’s affection for the little jewel box — the tiny house where she launched her business — was such that the couple decided to move the building around the corner to the churchyard abutting their home. They named the building the Fun House and filled it with an artful collection of natural phenomena and furniture, giving it the kind of interior Janice became famous for in her profession.
Last year, when the couple decided to retire, they spent some time transforming the Chatham Village building which had housed both Janice’s business and an apartment on the second floor. The two-story building became a spare and elegant gallery, making Rick’s assemblage and small sculpture works a natural for the play of light and angles in the space.
And on the day aMuse Gallery hung out its now iconic sign on Railroad St., the couple’s lives were transformed. Rick and Janice evolved from being a creative couple with a passion for collecting to curators.
Days and weeks were devoted to cultivating talent. They found a through-line in the parade of eclectic, original works — some sculpture, some assemblage, some photography, some illustration, some collage, some painting — that came through the door. Some of the artists were friends from the area, some colleagues, others complete strangers.
At the first group show at aMuse Gallery, much of the work exhibited and sold was Rick’s assemblage creations, cunning forms from natural elements and found objects containing a narrative, often humorous. Other area artists exhibiting and selling at the gallery since its opening in October of 2018 include Marc Rosenthal, an illustrator for The New York Times, the New Yorker and Simon and Schuster; Norman Hasselriis, a painter, poet and writer to whom the upcoming group show “Eye of the Beholder” is dedicated; Joel Schiller and Peter Dellert.
In the beginning, Janice and Rick weren’t sure what form the gallery would take and how it would differ from the myriad and many art spaces in the Berkshires and Hudson Valley. It wouldn’t be long before a visitor to the gallery would help decide aMuse's direction. The visitor in question entered with a large walking stick just after Rick and Janice hung their new sign.
“He looked very closely at every work of art in the gallery,” said Janice. “Not everyone does that. I asked him, at one point, if he was an artist. His reply was, ‘Can you tell?’”
He was a painter, so she and Rick visited his studio several blocks away where they would learn this painting hermit was Joel Schiller, Brooklyn native, formerly of Greenwich Village, where he painted the stories in his head but wasn’t ready to show his work until years later when he moved upstate. On the day he visited aMuse, Schiller was ready.
Rick and Janice were struck by the amount of work in the small space where Schiller lived. It was packed with hundreds of canvases, all the same size, all painted in oil, stacked vertically on the walls and horizontally on the floor. But it wasn’t the volume, it was the quality.
“The work blew us away. It was the light and energy,” said Rick.
Joel was invited to show 10 of his paintings in a group show at aMuse in the beginning of 2019. His paintings “Girl” and “Zarathustra” were among the works of his that sold.
The luck of this outsider artist dropping by was instrumental in the definition of the type of work the gallery would uncover.
On a trip to Holyoke, Mass., Rick and Janice discovered an artist whose studio was in a former garage turned carpentry shop. Peter Dellert is a furniture maker, assemblage artist and sculptor who combines natural elements with industrial salvage. His work has been on exhibit in the Berkshires and New England for the last 30 years. “Prevent from Freezing,” a three-dimensional work made from the lid of a rusted paint can lid festooned with pale blue hydrangea petals shows technical prowess that's pretty but powerful.
After several shows and working with the art of more than 55 artists, Janice and Rick realize they’ve found a groove for aMuse Gallery.
“We’re showing work that’s on the edge,” said Janice.
Rick Patterson’s work and that of Peter Dellert can be viewed in “Eye of the Beholder,” a group exhibit of art created from found objects. Other artists in the show are Rosemary Barrett, Stephanie Blumenthal, Luciana Frigerio, Michael Krieger, Conrad Levenson, Jack Metzger, Cristobal Morales, Charles Schweigert and Peter Thomashow. The exhibit runs until September 29. The public is invited to an artist reception on Saturday, Aug. 3 from 4 to 7 p.m.
aMuse Gallery
7 Railroad Ave., Chatham, NY
Open Thursday–Saturday from 11 a.m.–5 pm.; Sunday 12–4 p.m.
(518) 392-1060
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