ROCKLAND — Employee-owned Eastern Tire & Auto Service is presenting its second art show of the summer, featuring installation work by Kitty Winslow, abstract paintings on paper by Jeff Wolff, and wool sculpture by Lori E. Schafer on view during regular business hours for the month of August. The show continues the exhibition program at the 77-year old, 100% employee-owned local institution.
“As many know, we have a long tradition of supporting community causes and projects like showing local artists’ work here at Eastern Tire,” said Alvin Chase, president of Eastern Tire & Auto Service. “When Jeff reached out about this group show of three Rockland artists, we were happy to host it.”
Artist Kitty Winslow says: “My work is about searching, investigating, and reinventing. My process is highly intuitive, involving working and reworking surfaces, informing the work with a sense of history. Most recently I have been working with found materials, including cardboard and sticks, adding a welcome, lived-in look to my work.”
Winslow is the recipient of a Pollack Krasner Grant, two Connecticut Commission on the Arts grants, a Yaddo Fellowship, and a Vermont Studio Colony Fellowship. She lives in Rockland with her husband, Carlton Winslow, Sr., and their cat Etta, and with her extended family nearby.
Artist and writer Jeff Wolff, who has battled Treatment Resistant Major Depression for 49 years, says: “Making art takes my mind off my mind. 90% of the time I start with no idea. The shapes or colors I draw early on dictate where to go. I rarely do a piece absent Black. The BLACKNESS still demands a place in my work, and too often I am forced to concede. As time wore on, color stood up to the blackness, and brought me a small degree of relief.”
Wolff discovered visual artmaking just after retiring to Rockland in 2013. Prior, he built a notable career at top NYC advertising agencies, winning more than two dozen awards for copywriting, but in other genres as well (including a Power Of Print Award in 1969 from Time Magazine for a piece sounding an alarm focused on nuclear war). He is married to artist Lori E. Schafer; together they have a daughter and grandson in Los Angeles and live with their dog, Clee Clee.
Artist Lori E. Schafer says: “My creative focus is on nature, up close and personal, be it animal, vegetable or mineral. It would not be possible for me to get too near my subjects. I even gather pieces of their existence to handle, transform, and celebrate. I draw, photograph, sculpt, spin, knit, felt, bead . . . always keeping my eye and hand and heart open to what moves me.”
Schafer has exhibited for several decades locally and far afield, studied art history at CUNY Grad School, and continues to be enamored of materials and methods.
For more information about Eastern Tire visit easterntireinc.com or call (207) 594-5250; Kitty Winslow visit @kitty_winslow; Jeff Wolff visit @picassowhatmaine; Lori E. Schafer visit @lori.e.schafer .
