SOUTH NEWFANE-Respecting historic architectural elegance and adding their own imprimatur, Tom Concannon and Ravi Shimpi became stewards of the 1899 inn at the center of South Newfane a few years ago. Ever since, they've been building a following, not only as a center for art and wellness retreats, but also for offerings of fine art.
Concannon and Shimpi will host "Flowstate: Connecting through Art," exhibiting the work of students, teachers, and alumni from the Grand Central Atelier (GCA) in Brooklyn, New York.
GCA is dedicated to renewing techniques and principles of classical training in works in contemporary works. The curriculum emphasizes skillful draftsmanship, meticulous attention to detail, and a focus on capturing the sensual world in portraits, figures, landscapes, and florals.
As Concannon told The Commons in 2024, GCA "celebrates the skill, dedication, and vision of artists who push the boundaries of traditional art, creating works that are technically impressive and emotionally resonant."
Talking about this third show, Concannon reflects: "In 2023, we started by profiling GCA - the school, the teaching, and the skills-based instruction. In 2024, we profiled the artist's journey through that school and beyond to try to show how that skill is taken in different directions, particularly in years after graduating."
This year, "we're profiling the viewer," he says.
"We're hoping to explore how artwork is a medium for us as people to make contact with something essential about living, and when we see something we like on a canvas, and we pause to investigate it, the world holds still while we contemplate," Concannon continues.
He says that people bring develop their preferences in art valuing color, composition, skill, subject, and even motive force."
Whether consciously or not, he notes, we tend to rank those values.
"We might prefer art that evokes an emotional response, or we might prefer art that presents florals, or bucolic farm scenes, or the nude. Or we might prefer artworks that just manage to pull off an incredible composition," Concannon says.
"We all hold these different values in some kind of constellation [...] and that's what draws us into art," he notes.
With "Flowstate," the intention is to "celebrate whatever it is for people that draws them into that moment of contemplation where something deeper is happening beyond what's on the canvas, something deeper than just what's happening in our day that happens between the artist, the viewer, and the canvas, or the artwork."
That's the focus of the show.
"We will be showing artworks the way a collector might display them in their own home," Concannon says.
One section of the exhibit, he notes, "might group works depicting varied subjects with similar lines of composition, such as a figure, a landscape, and a floral that break up the canvas in the same dimensions."
"Another view might group paintings and sculptures that evoke a specific emotion like love," Concannon says. "Another vignette might bring together works on the same subject matter, like water in landscape paintings or everyday objects in still life paintings. In this approach, the emphasis is on the viewer's experience of art."
This year, he says, Willow's show is all about how art "matters to the viewer": "That moment we stop in front of an artwork and feel something, a fleeting disengagement from the mundane and sometimes even a portal into something essential about living. We see and feel that something important is captured on that canvas and we pause to investigate it. The world holds still while we contemplate."
As in conjunction with the previous two years' shows, participating artists will be in residence at Willow and will each go out for several days for en plein air painting of area landscapes.
As said on willowretreat.com, "We ask our neighbors across southern Vermont to volunteer their properties with scenic views, antique buildings, ponds, streams, or old growth trees. After breakfast at Willow each morning, the artists will pack up portable easels, brushes, paints, and canvases and come to you."
Concannon adds that beyond 2025, the annual show will be reconceived as Willow Invitational. Still showcasing art from life, he and Shimpi will cast a wider net to include the 50 to 60 schools globally, beyond GCA, that teach the art of making art from life - not from photos, nor imagination.
At "Flowstate," more than 100 works by 40 artists will be on display and available for sale. Concannon notes that, for those who'd like to browse and even purchase in advance, a digital catalogue features high-resolution photographs and information on all artworks.
Noting that artists listen to viewers and "are fascinated by the patron's genuine, heartfelt response to a work of art," Concannon invites all to the opening reception with artists on Sunday, Aug. 24, from 1 to 6 p.m. A closing reception is set for those same hours on Sunday, Aug. 31.
For those who wish to get an early peek, a preview reception is offered Saturday, Aug. 23, by advance registration only. Visits to the show during the week, Monday, Aug. 25, through Saturday, Aug. 30, are by appointment.
For more information, visit willowvt.com/upcoming/flowstate. Parking is available at Willow Vermont Retreat, 369 Dover Rd. Assistance is available for those who need it up the four steps to the entrance.
This Arts item by Annie Landenberger was written for The Commons.