May at the Gallery
By Pat Kerns
Both of the featured artists at Alliance Art Gallery in downtown Hannibal during the month of May are artists who fast forwarded their artistic careers after retirement. Both had a love of making art from an early age and continued to do so throughout their lives whenever time allowed.
Guest artist Sharon Shaw, a native of Quincy, returned there from Florida where she and her husband lived for 13 years after his retirement. This brought them geographically closer to some of their ten children. While in Florida she was actively involved in the arts and has continued that since returning to her childhood hometown.
From early childhood Sharon has had a love of art and has used a variety of media. When her children were in grade school she volunteered to teach art there. Currently she works primarily in oil when painting but has also researched creating jewelry using wire wrapped techniques. These pieces are silver plated square German style wire which more readily catches the light and a variety of stones. Her paintings include a variety of subjects including highly detailed Florida wading birds and a series of rodeo events paintings among many other subjects.
Gallery artist Martha Walden is the Spotlight artist for the month. Like our guest artist, Martha relocated back to Quincy. She spent 50 years away from her hometown, with the last 12 living and working in Los Angeles. After her retirement from the corporate world, she was motivated to reignite her passion for creating art.
Martha joined Alliance Gallery one year ago and is known to gallery visitors for her abstract painting. However, in her early art her practice focused on realism and figure drawing as her comfort zone.
She is mainly a self-taught artist, but also found opportunities to take college extension classes in oil painting, charcoal, pastel and foundational drawings. Over the years she gathered a plethora of materials - from the usual to the unusual- and about 10 years ago started them to experiment with abstraction.
Her works have been displayed regionally, at the Quincy Art Center, Hannibal Arts Council and Keokuk Art Center.
Martha believes there is always more to learn, something more to say and another way to say it.
Gallery visitors can see the works of both artists throughout the month of May and can hear the artist talks during the Second Saturday Art Walk on May 9 th at 121 N Main in downtown Hannibal from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Come visit with gallery members and sign up anytime that day for the opportunity to win a piece of art created by Martha Walden.
