Berkshire Botanical Garden presents a new art exhibition, Fanfare, opening on Saturday, November 5, with a reception scheduled for Friday, November 11, from 4 to 6 p.m. Featuring works by John Thompson, Fanfare will exhibit in the Garden’s Center House Leonhardt Galleries. The exhibit will run through Sunday, Nov 27.
“The basis for my work is landscapes where I choose specific moments and small elements as my focus,” said Thompson, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, and Harpswell, Maine. “These intimate observations are often fleeting glimpses of a pond or a garden. The immense variety of what we may observe in nature I find endlessly fascinating.
“The simple occurrence — the stray stick fallen across a background of decaying ferns or the pattern of leaves in a stream — can lead to a series of prints or paintings. In making work, I begin with the simple observing, often with a sketch or small painting. In taking those fleeting images back to my studio, as recall fades, imagination takes over and the images begin to change.”
Thompson said, “Making art has become a source of quiet refuge in these turbulent times. I am comforted by being able to draw on the landscape to replenish a sense of balance and control in life. My observation and invention on the borrowed landscape renews and replenishes.”
Thompson has taught at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Framingham State University, The Art and Innovation Center in Weston, Mass., the Washington Art Association in Washington, Conn., and many other workshops around the country. He works with master printers Peter and James Pettengill in Hinsdale, N.H., and Susan Oehme at Oehme Graphics in Steamboat Springs, Colo. He serves on several boards of art and educational institutions.
Thompson holds degrees from Syracuse University (BFA), University of Wisconsin-Madison (MA), Babson College (MBA), and Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MFA). Gallery hours for Fanfare are 10 to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays through Fridays (Mondays, by appointment) and 11 to 3 p.m. on weekends through November 27. Berkshire Botanical Garden is located at 5 West Stockbridge Rd., Stockbridge, Mass. Visit Berkshirebotanical.org.
