In November I will be having a show, Ripple Geometry, at Gallery 65 on William Street in New Bedford. The opening reception will be on AHA Night, Thursday, November 13 from 5-9 pm.
Each time I type the gallery address, it seems as though a new memory surfaces. When I was a little girl, my grandfather owned a business just down the street from Gallery 65. Back then, this part of downtown was at best seedy, and at night it was downright dangerous. The old bank building across the street was a bar with scary-looking guys straight out of a James Cagney movie. On hot days they sat outside on the steps with cigarette packs rolled up in their t-shirt sleeves and beer bottles in their hands. Arguments often spilled out into the street -- live theater that I could watch while safe inside “the shop” I loved to visit. When the excitement died down outside, there was always my grandfather’s rolltop desk. My child’s eye found a whole magic world of little drawers and hidden compartments in that desk. Eventually, Papa would shoo me away and I would head to the curved window nook filled from floor to ceiling with boxes of brightly colored thread. I wasn’t supposed to touch but……
When the Wamsutta Mills left town for South Carolina the family business moved into one of their old warehouses. The seedy bar has become the National Park Visitor Center in a rich and lively arts community. The little girl who never had a real art class before the age of 40 is having an exhibit just up the street. Dreams unimagined sometimes come true.
