The O-town Scene

12 O-Town Scene July 10, 2014 Artist of the Month: The Scheele Family The Scheele Family Artwork by Christie Scheele, Gerri Scheele and Anthony and Tessa Scheele Morelli is on display at the Community Arts Network of Oneonta through July 20. "Three Generations: Forest and Field" will be celebrated with an opening reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, July 11, in the galleries at the Wilber Mansion at 11 Ford Ave. in Oneonta. Here's what CANO had to say about the four artists in this show: Christie Scheele "I explore power and beauty in both the landscape and with the abstract elements of painting. As a non-regional landscape painter, I use images from all over the world, all of the places I have been. With the right atmospherics, anything and everything can reflect a powerful beauty — from smoke- stacks or headlights on a road to a glorious summer day." Christie Scheele has been painting devot- edly since receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1980, and began exhibiting and selling her work in 1985. She started painting her atmospheric, minimalist landscapes just before moving to the Catskills from New York City in 1990. These meditative pieces cross the boundaries between realism and the contemporary art world, reaching the viewer's heart without sentimentality or melodrama. Some of her signature imag- ery comes from the beaches, marshes and tidal areas of Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod; the mountains, creeks and fields of the Catskills region; the Hudson River; urban and industrial views; and the roadways and bridge-crossings that connect all of these places. Scheele's work has been collected nationally and internationally through galleries in the Hudson Valley as well as those in New York City, New Jersey, Boston, Martha's Vineyard, Portland, Ore., and Cape Cod. "The single most important aspect to what I do as a landscape painter is my ability to reduce a scene to its essentials. This gives the viewer what is important, without the distraction, or visual clutter, of too much detail. All of my work has a sense of being suspended between two breaths. Often, that feeling is palpable during the process of creation. Time is slowed, perhaps even halts for a moment, allowing us to see the world in all of its fullness." Gerri Scheele Gerri Scheele has been exhibiting her ce- ramics and paintings for more than 45 years, including many group shows at UCCCA/ Wilber Mansion as well as a retrospective in 2007. She has also shown extensively at the Smithy-Pioneer Gallery in Cooperstown and The Cooperstown Artists. She became known as both a skilled potter and inventive ceramic sculptor in the mid- State region during and after receiving her bachelor's degree in studio art from the State University College at Oneonta in the early 1970s. Her ceramics are in numerous private collections in the Oneonta and New York City areas. Gerri ranged far and wide in both style and subject matter in her paintings before settling into an American Impressionist mode of landscape painting around 2000. Since then, her paintings have been exhibited, appreci- ated, and collected by many in the Oneonta area. Anthony Scheele Morelli Anthony has spent much of his life in the Catskills. A student at Hampshire College, he has explored the world creatively through a variety of mediums, including film, photog- raphy, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. The stylistically consistent series of linocuts featured in this show focuses on seedheads and late-season stages of plants. Tony has exhibited at the Center for Pho- tography in Woodstock and the Shandaken Studio Tour, and won an award from the National Scholastic Arts and Writing Foun- dation. Tessa Scheele Morelli Tessa's work is informed by her love of the forests and fields, and all that is green and growing. Through botanical illustration she hopes to capture qualities of the plants that she meets, while her wildcrafted works use the plants themselves as a medium, engaging with traditional place-based heritages. Her work has been shown in the Catskills at the Woodstock Artist's Association and Museum, The Arts Upstairs, and through the Shandaken Studio Tour, and has received recognition from the National Scholastic Arts and Writing Foundation. She is studying natural history and place- based arts at Sterling College in Vermont, while working in the woods and teaching in nature-based youth programs. She plans to continue her studies in herbal medicine and traditional ecological knowledge, practices which both enrich and are enriched by her art.

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