BELLEFONTE — Just inside the doors at the Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County, at 133 Allegheny Street, to the room on the right, you will find the exhibit, “Good Libations: Breweries, Cideries, Distilleries, and Wineries.” Twenty-seven photographs by local photographers grace the walls of the Windows Gallery. The photographers took pictures of people and places that were related to the process of making libations.
In the past few years, several breweries, distilleries and wineries have sprung up in this area and thus the theme of the museum for this summer’s project. Artifacts and equipment loaned for the exhibit from local brewers and winemakers add to the experience of visiting the museum. This grouping of photographs will continue through July 30.
First Sunday receptions applaud the new shows for the month and offer food and good social time for visitors. Several exciting new shows will continue through July.
Moving into the Sieg Gallery, visitors will be fascinated by the digitally painted works of Dani Kaulakis. She was on hand for Sunday’s Reception, dressed in one of her historic costumes, most of which represent strong women. Kaulakis is a freelance illustrator based out of Bellefonte. She graduated from Penn State in 2007 with a BFA with a background in painting and graphic design and has worked in her field since then.
Visitors especially seemed to enjoy her colorful pictures of a woman driving a chariot pulled by cats. Kaulakis’ show will continue through July.
The Tea Room Gallery for the next month will be home to the works of Barb Pennypacker and Denise Wagner.
Wagner has been an artist and photographer for more than 30 years. She worked for Penn State as an illustrator and photographer and has exhibited photos and paintings at most of the galleries in Centre County and elsewhere. She believes in conserving farmland and woodlands and contributing to entities that take care of the environment. Because of this interest, she has donated a series of paintings and photographs to the Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center, PAWS (Pennsylvania Animal Welfare Society), Centre Wildlife Care and Millbrook Marsh.
Some of her paintings depict vanishing forest or farmland scenes, as well as wetland birds and animals.
Also exhibiting in the Tea Room Gallery, Barb Pennypacker shows her love of farmland and the desire to preserve it by painting barns and fields that recall earlier days when Pennsylvania was more of an agricultural area.
Pennypacker was a faculty member in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Penn State. She learned to paint after retiring in 2005, first trying her hand at watercolors and later in oils. She studied old barns and worked tirelessly to master her craft, painting both barn scenes and landscapes. A Farmland Preservation Artist, she has participated in regional juried shows as well as being a member of the Art Alliance of Central Pennsylvania and the Bellefonte Art Museum (BAM) registry.
The Community Gallery Upstairs at BAM features Char Casbourne. An Aliquippa, Pennsylvania native, Casbourne earned her BFA in 2D Medium with a focus of Fine Art History at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She started drawing at age six, studied at Parsons New School of Design in New York City and later in Tours, France. Her first love is painting, out of all the mediums she has tried. Her subjects include abstracts, landscapes and portraits. Casbourne takes ordinary objects and brings out the moods or motions that they hold. Her exhibit will run through July 30.
Janise Crow is holding court in the Jewelry Gallery for July. Crow is a juried multimedia jewelry artist. She has individualized jewelry designs. She said, “I am a story teller with my designs.” She works with people and their keepsakes—jewelry, a thimble or a watch—whatever holds meaning and memory for a person. Taking those, after listening to the client’s story, she presents the story in a piece of jewelry unique to the owner.
You can find her in the Jewelry Gallery through July 30. Her company is named, “Sentimental Jewelry Designs.”
Jeni Kocher Zerphy is currently showing on the second floor with her canvases of wolves and seascapes of Acadia. Zerphy works in a variety of mediums, with digital art and photography emphasized. She is a Maryland and Pennsylvania certified teacher and has worked with grades PreK-12. Steel Crab Industries, Inc. is her company dedicated to her art and illustration endeavors. She has authored and illustrated a book titled, “Submarine” — a board book.
The first Sunday of each month is also a day for kids in the Imagination Gallery upstairs at the art museum. Recently, Linna Muschlitz was showing and helping children to assemble “flower fairies.” There has been a rise in interest in fairy gardens and the tiny items to decorate them in recent years. Muschlitz used silk flowers and beads to fashion her “fairies.”
The Bellefonte Art Museum is open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from noon until 4:30 p.m.
