Blue Moon Gallery to host its last event of year

GRAYSLAKE – The Blue Moon Gallery in Grayslake is hosting its final event of the year from 6 to 9 p.m. Dec. 18. Champagne and refreshments will be served, and the gallery’s popular fire pit will be glowing.

The gallery is showing the inaugural collection of works created by four artists known as the CRAM Collective – Crystal Marie, Rebecca Stahr, Amanda Jolley and Melissa Hall – who created 80 mixed media works during the pandemic in a round-robin style of art making across three states (Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky). The collection, “Transcend:Distance,” features encaustic and mixed media works on wood panels that intertwine with one another in theme, artistic style, colors and shapes and composition.

“We are quite excited to share this very special exhibition with our community,” Blue Moon Gallery Director Kendra Kett said in a news release. “The art is engaging, beautiful, unique and soulful. These artists are top tier and you can literally see and feel their strong connection to one another through the art they produced. The pieces include works created using oil and cold wax, encaustic, photography, paper folding and collage. It’s a stunning show.”

Blue Moon Gallery also is featuring the fiber art of Grayslake artist Laura O’Connor in an exhibition titled “Embroidery as Testimony and Dissent.” O’Connor joins the strong tradition of women who have turned needlecraft into a vehicle for political expression and commentary on society.

“Patrons will get to experience O’Connor’s world of embroidery hoops featuring the T-Shirt Girls, Tiny Sweaters, Socks and High Heels, and her testimony and dissent. This is a fun, inspiring and unusual presentation,” Kett said.

Two of the gallery’s 2021 Collective Artists will be presenting farewell exhibitions. Michael Litewski will be presenting four works that represent each of the first four major stages of his 40-year art career. Bob Nonnemacher, normally known for his abstracted geometry and deconstructed landscapes, is exhibiting a collection of watercolor and colored pencil portraiture of iconic Native Americans.

The gallery’s other collective artists, John Kirkpatrick Jr., Michael Bellefeuille and Leisa Corbett, are presenting new works in acrylic figurative paintings, metal wall-dependent sculpture and landscape paintings done in oil.

Guest artist Juli Janovicz is offering jeweled garden wands made with Pandora charms, hand-blown and hand-painted glass beads, lamp work beads, rhinestones and Czech glass.

Patrons are invited to the final artist reception of the year from 6 to 9 p.m. Dec. 18 to visit the gallery, meet the artists, enjoy refreshments and experience the arts. The event is free and open to the public. Masks are required.

The art also will be on view Dec. 19 and Jan. 2. The gallery will be closed Dec. 25 and 26 and Jan. 1.

The gallery is at 18620 Belvidere Road in Grayslake.

For information, contact Kett at 224-388-7948 or visit the gallery’s website at www.thebluemoongallery.com.