St. Charles Art Council to Feature 'Celebrating Veterans Through Art'

Submission by the St. Charles Arts Council 

The St Charles Arts Council’s pop-up art gallery program, the neXt gallery on E. Main Street is popping up at 11 East Main Street, St. Charles, Illinois. The gallery opens as a featured program of Celebrating Veterans Through Art on Saturday, November 7, running through Sunday, November 29.

The Opening Reception is on Saturday, November 7 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Appetizers and drink will be provided. The SCAC thanks artists James and Nanette Stephens for their generous donation of Stephens’ famous BBQ meatballs and grilled pork for the reception.

This neXt gallery on E. Main, features 2D and 3D visual art, including painting, sculpture, and photography created by local and regional visual artists, many of whom are veterans.

The gallery will also feature a literature display of the stories of local veterans, from interviews with them by writers Russ Devereaux, Wayne Johnson [who is himself a veteran], Jay Payleitner, and Tricia Whitworth. The gallery will also feature the work of local students – St. Charles East High School’s Class of 2017’s videotaped interviews of veterans [a Library of Congress program], as well as paintings designed by East’s Nina Grover that will decorate the exterior windows of the space. In addition, the gallery will display the “Yes I Served and I’m Your Neighbor” Project.

Artists in the neXt gallery on E. Main are:

• Guy J. Bellaver
• Rick Brems
• Jasmine Clark
• Jennifer Knobloch
• James Patinka
• Richard Pennington
• Linda Roxe
• John Sibley
• James E. Stephens
• Nanette B. Stephens
• Folleh Tamba
• Jack Wooldridge
• Richard Zayat
• Fred H. Zinke
• Special Guest Artist: Rita Grendze
• Special Art Installation: Amy Furio

In describing the latest neXt gallery, Elizabeth Bellaver, St Charles Arts Council volunteer curator, said, “The theme of this gallery is “Stories” – in keeping with the concept of the Veterans Event, which is to use the arts to tell veterans stories of service and sacrifice. It’s the first time that we’ve required Artist Statements – and we’re so pleased that the stories and artwork that were submitted are so interesting and so broad in scope – and many of them are powerful stories of or about veterans.

The gallery will include paintings, photographs, sculpture, and an art installation project. More than half of the artists in the gallery are veterans themselves, which is just wonderful. We’re also so delighted that “E. Main” will include the “Yes I Served and I’m Your Neighbor” gallery of photographs of veterans from their years in the service and today, with short biographical information about each of them. We’ve already had over 70 submissions for this part of the gallery, which is just awesome.”

The arts council encourages everyone to see the gallery during the three weeks that it is in the E. Main space, and to check out Rita Grendze’s public art installation project on the front lawn of the Baker Community Center. The piece is entitled “Surfacing” and is dedicated in memory of her nephew who served in the Navy, Brandon Lee Grendze. Grendze’s very moving Artist Statement may be found on the neXt gallery web site http://nextgallerystcharles.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=102.