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this month’s Featured Art Exhibit: 

Read about how the artist feel about the upcom­ing exhib­it SENSE OF WONDER. 
ARIANNA BARA: The events of these extra­or­di­nary days, filled as they are with both wor­ry and hope, are what, iron­i­cal­ly, have led me clos­er to a “Sense of Won­der”.  What has kept me ground­ed has almost lit­er­al­ly been the ground; the earth under my feet.   As my world has shrunk,  I spend time explor­ing the small­est worlds I have access to and find a uni­verse in the land of moss­es and lichens in the woods.  My eyes are open like a child’s to the bright greens, the tex­tures, the vari­ety of leaves and ten­drils.  In the same way, I have been moved by the “shim­mer­ing of wind through the blue leaves, the flood of still­ness widen­ing the lake of sky” as poet Denise Lev­er­tov writes.  That same excite­ment car­ries over to the nat­ur­al beau­ty found in fos­sils and in stones like Aus­tralian boul­der opals, which begin as rivers of sil­i­ca flow­ing through chan­nels in rock and become beau­ti­ful­ly unpre­dictable in the vari­ety and inten­si­ties of their col­ors.  In cre­at­ing jew­el­ry with these fruits of the earth it is my hope that I am able to com­mu­ni­cate that same con­nec­tion and won­der to the wear­er.
LARRY FAVORITE: This has been an extra­or­di­nary year. Due to the pan­dem­ic, I have spent long, unin­ter­rupt­ed days in my stu­dio, with only a pile of desert iron­wood, thou­sands of tiny bits of turquoise, sheets of ster­ling sil­ver, and my imag­i­na­tion to keep me com­pa­ny.   
The con­straints of this past year have pre­sent­ed both chal­lenges and gifts. To pro­duce a fin­ished piece of art using these mate­ri­als requires men­tal focus, phys­i­cal effort and patience. Specif­i­cal­ly, I must slow down my breath­ing, nar­row my field of vision and steady my hands. As a result, mak­ing my art has the capac­i­ty to calm both my body and my mind.
I have made pieces for this show that high­light the endur­ing qual­i­ty of iron­wood, enhanced by a com­bi­na­tion of flow­ing abstract designs and sim­ple real­is­tic images drawn from nature. These pieces are meant not to star­tle the view­er, but rather to com­mu­ni­cate a sense of famil­iar­i­ty, reas­sur­ance, and heal­ing. I hope you are as calmed by look­ing at these pieces as I was by mak­ing them.
EDUARDO LAPETINA: We are still in the midst of the Coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Forced by the virus and con­sid­er­ing my age (80!) and my autoim­mune con­di­tions, I had a pause in our inces­sant life trav­el­ing. I was in com­plete iso­la­tion and most­ly work­ing in my stu­dio. It was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with the out­side world through my paint­ings. I want­ed the present work to be the cat­a­lyst to rethink the sig­nif­i­cance of our future and to stim­u­late ideas and dia­logue. To have a fresh out­look with an explo­sion of vibrant col­ors, impact­ful tex­tures and mes­sages of hope.
I also want­ed to inter­pret col­or as a tan­gi­ble form, yet simul­ta­ne­ous­ly retain a dichoto­my of flu­id­i­ty giv­ing way to shift­ing pat­terns mir­ror­ing a har­mo­ny res­onat­ing with emo­tion­al feel­ing.
I want my jour­ney in art to be a nat­ur­al orches­tra­tion of my expe­ri­ences and emo­tions.

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Hills­bor­ough Gallery of Arts, 121 N. Chur­ton St., Hills­bor­ough, NC 27278    DIRECTIONS   919–578‑5001