Learn more about Aaron Becker

See originals, prints, and books online 

PLEASE NOTE: walk-ins are welcome for the gallery. Masks are required indoors. 

July 8th – August 30th

Learn more about Isabel Margolin

Come see a live demonstration Saturday, July 24th at 1:30 PM at Hope and Feathers! Learn about the indirect method and help Isabel create a sparkling mosaic. To RSVP click here.

PLEASE NOTE: walk-ins are welcome for the gallery. Masks optional. 

June 3nd – July 2nd

PLEASE NOTE: walk-ins are welcome for the gallery. 

PLEASE NOTE: walk-ins are welcome for the gallery. 

10% of all sales will be donated to the Amherst Survival Center

The nostalgia and sense of fun is clear in Chris Bordenca’s vibrantly-colored paintings of toys, action figures, and other treasured memorabilia from the 70’s and 80’s. His subjects are iconic and familiar: Star Wars characters, Batman villains, Rubik’s Cubes, video games, sea monkeys, and more, that immediately evoke that pre-internet era, especially for 80’s kids. Chris says: Almost nothing gets forgotten anymore. The past exists in the collective memory of the internet, and we can reach in and physically bring those memories into our present. These paintings are tangible and joyful reminders of the most recent pre-internet past, even if you weren’t an 80’s kid.

10% of sales from this exhibit will be donated to the The Belchertown Education Foundation. BEF is an independent, volunteer, non-profit organization committed to enriching the educational opportunities of students in Belchertown public schools.

About Chris Bordenca:
Chris’ work focuses on personal connections to objects and places from his youth in the seventies and eighties, including paintings of action figures, toys, and video games from that era. After a ten-year hiatus he returned to painting in 2018. Since then, he has shown his work around the valley in group shows, and a show in Australia to benefit victims of the wildfires. His painting “Starless Sea With Keys” won first place for acrylic painting at the 2020 Northeast Fine Arts Exposition. Chris has a BFA from UMass Amherst and lives with his family in Belchertown. bordenca.com

PLEASE NOTE: walk-ins are welcome for the gallery. Masks required. Currently we are allowing four customers in the shop at one time.

How has your style changed over the years?
I started painting album covers and comic book art on people’s leather jackets in and after high school. In my 20’s I began painting murals in homes and businesses of whatever was asked, but my personal work turned to abstract figurative paintings. I then moved to large non-representational paintings, while still painting murals commercially. Eventually painting other people’s ideas in the murals became tedious, and I became turned off from painting all together. Ten years later, I decided to approach painting the same way that I approached art when I was young. I would paint whatever I wanted. Anything that made me happy. That is what I do now.

When did you know you wanted to be an artist?
1982. When I was seven years old I had a coloring book based on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. One of the images inside included a relatively realist drawing of the dog from the movie. I copied the drawing of the dog, and it was the very first time I felt what it was like to really see the thing I was looking at. I suddenly understood how to look at something and draw an accurate representation of it. It felt like real magic, and I was hooked.

What inspires you?
I love tapping into the toys and pop culture from the 70’s and 80’s. I also love old books, abandoned buildings, and beat up vehicles. I like the idea of things managing to survive through time to the present and capturing their magic before they disappear.

What is your creative process like? How do you work?
In the studio I basically play with toys for hours until I find the right feeling. I take a ton of photos with different lighting and arrangements.

What is your favorite piece that you’ve created?
My current favorites are Toy Chest, Space Invader, and Mission: Unknown

Any advice to young or emerging artists?
Make art for yourself, not what other people think you should make, or what you think other people will like.

Images above cropped from:
Space Invader, acrylic on canvas, 20×16″
Smile, acrylic on canvas, 20×16″
Hitchhiker, acrylic on canvas, 20×20″

PLEASE NOTE: walk ins are welcome for the gallery, on your own or small groups of up to three people. Please wear a mask.

New Pastels by Amherst Artist Ruth Rinard

Her grandfather’s farm made her an artist. Golden wheat in the wind, expansive blue sky, billowing clouds, tall yellow tasseled dark green corn, shimmering heat lightning, searing dry heat, or small buildings on the distant horizon filled her with a sense of awe. A transcendent bright abyss opened before her.Later to get an education and to raise a family she moved east. Hills crowded in on each other, sky was hard to come by, and roads disappeared around curves. Ever changing light filtered through forests. Humidity hung everywhere. Everything came in quick glimpses. Everything demanded intimacy, interiority.

Awe and intimacy, two constant threads in her work, are held together by narrative. As she starts a painting, she has a title or phrase in mind. It becomes the narrative linking the deeply personal interior and the unfathomable outer world. Her art strives to make this connection visible.

About Ruth Rinard:
After careers in academe and health sciences, Ruth became intrigued with the freshness of pure pigment and the tactile possibilities of pastel. When she realized she could use her drawing skills within the painterly framework of pastel, she never looked back. Ruth has studied painting with Christine Labich and exhibited work with the Connecticut and New Hampshire pastel societies. 

PLEASE NOTE: walk ins are welcome for the gallery, on your own or small groups of up to three people.

Paintings by Hadley artist Rodney Madison. Rodney’s dynamic and colorful paintings are in the gallery until August 27th. He’s a prolific painter and passionate about his work, and paints every day. Come see the work of this talented self-taught artist!

About Rodney Madison:
Rodney is a self-taught artist originally from Chicago, now based in Hadley. He began painting in his 50s and has become recognized as a powerful and prolific painter. Relying on his alchemy of art, he has become an artist with few boundaries and a wildly active imagination. He has opened new windows of creativity and continues to share his vision with the universe. instagram.com/rodneymadisonstudio

Banner images: Juice of Chitterlings and Roots, both 36×48: and acrylic on canvas,

New work by Laurieanne Wysocki, July 7th to August 1st.

Artists use abstraction to push beyond the recognizable world and ornamentation to decorate it. Laurieanne’s recent work explores the relationship between the two concepts in vibrantly colored and highly textured paintings. Identifiable forms and motifs are blended with spontaneous gestural work bringing the two pursuits into a delightful harmony.

Of her work, Laurieanne says: “The eye will automatically seek out familiar forms so I begin by imprinting combinations of patterns into plaster with wood blocks and highlighting details with contrasting colors. I add in interlacing flowers, trailing vines, and spiraling geometric shapes to make the composition rhythmical rather than random. Then I intentionally disrupt the subtle functions of the forms by the addition of more texture or by the removal of some of the plaster with a hand sander. It’s a very process-driven, transformative style. The challenge is to not go too far in one direction and destroy what may have taken months to build up. It’s a fine line and not without risk but if the painting begins to look too predictable I remove what I call the obviousness of it. I’m inspired by the frescoes of antiquity and interested in what remains – the parts that have stood the test of time, whether hidden by nature or intentionally covered up, and are revealed centuries later. The destruction and persistence of the piece is my take on an ancient process.”

About Laurieanne Wysocki:
Laurieanne is a painter and mixed media artist. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts she studied at the Arts Student League in New York City and had her first solo show in 1990. She has traveled the world, both independently and for the last 20 years as a tour director for Road Scholar educational programs and to date has visited more than 80 countries. Her cultural impressions are often reflected in her colorful and intricate paintings.

Laurieanne’s exhibit of paintings and metal assemblage works, “Pentimento”, was shown in the gallery in 2016.

Banner image: detail of Marrakesh, mixed media on canvas, 24 x 48″

Mixed Media Collage by Amherst artist Nan Salky, March 5th to 28th. Extended to May 2nd

Nan finds inspiration and materials for her art in her wanderings through antique stores brimming with vintage ephemera. She is drawn to certain faces and expressions, finding humor and playfulness in the process of transformation. In her studio, formal portraits are collaged and embellished with exotic birds, flowers and impossible combinations of detail. This process helps revive and recast the images into a more personal and fanciful vision. Her pieces are completed with repurposed antique frames that help hold their place in the past.

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 5th, 5-8pm, during Amherst Arts Night Plus

About Nan Salky:
Nan grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. She received her BA in Writing and Illustrating Children’s Books from The University of Colorado, Boulder, and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Antioch New England. She has worked for more than thirty years as a psychotherapist, and has reared two daughters. She lives in Amherst with her husband, Tom Murphy, who supports and assists in her artistic endeavors. Her art work has been exhibited locally since 2010. 

Nan’s exhibit of assemblage works, “I Heard the Shadows Calling”, was shown in the gallery in 2014.