Opening Reception — Saturday, March 23, 6-9pm

A Juried Exhibition & Competition Featuring Fine Art About Birds

Guest Juror: Scot Jay Marr, Retired Scenic & Costume Designer, Chicago Lyric Opera

On view through April 14. Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays 1-4pm.

Congratulations to the following artists whose artworks were selected: Sanjukta Acharya, Maria Ananieva, Kristin Ashley, Maddy Asma, Matt Bellefeuille, Marcia Biasiello, Cynthia Boudreau, Sinead Carus, Paulette Colo, Rudy DeRam, Jane Ellefson, Jeanne Garrett, Allison Hausladen, Robert Hilger, Missy Isely Poltrock, Chuck Keller, Julia Kemerer, Kathy Kerner, Marie Luc, Terry Luc, Mike McGuire, Sarah McNabb, Christine Miller, Kristen Neveu, Julie Nykiel, Laura O’Connor, Tara Riley, Jaynanne Ridder, Amy Robillard, Aruna Sarode, Sandra Saxton, Carol May Scott, Linda Scholly, Phil Schorn, Mary Seyfarth, Barbara Skiba-Poniatowski, Kat Strack, Louise Villegas, Mary Voegeli, Marilyn Weisberg, Gail Willert, Kelly Witte, Jeff Wozniak, Debra Zare

“IT’S FOR THE BIRDS” as a fine art exhibition aims to visually explore many ideas, such as:
-- The immense beauty and diversity of birds as a species, including related subjects such as nests, eggs, feathers, flight, wings, etc.
-- Bird symbolism – freedom, perspective, communication, music, travel, and connections to the spiritual realm
-- The various phrases & idioms related to birds, such as: bird’s eye view, a little bird told me, fly the coop, etc...
-- What can we do "for" the birds? -- ecological efforts, climate activism, habitat reclamation, migration study, etc.

This unique & inspiring show features 47 amazing pieces of fine art created by 44 gifted artists from all over Northern IL, Chicagoland, and Southeastern WI.

Juror: Scott Jay Marr, Retired Scenic Director, Chicago Lyric Opera

Photo: Potato by Marie Luc 6x6 Acrylic

Guest Artist: Maureen Ivy Fisher | Painting in Fiber

Maureen will be debuting her collection of new works she calls "paintings in fiber." Maureen is the FIRST fiber artist we have shown at the Blue Moon and her exhibition marks our very FIRST fiber show!

"Organic shapes and forms, rather than straight-edged geometric ones, are the components of my compositions. They are my interpretation of the many landscapes I’ve hiked or traveled. The correlation between the natural material of sheep’s wool and the images that emerge from it, oftentimes spontaneously, feels connected and honest. The images thus created are my embrace of the natural world and, for me, they are a refuge from the digital and man-made spaces in which we live and work today." -- Maureen Ivy Fisher

Opening Reception — Saturday, November 18, 6-9pm

2nd Reception — Saturday, December 16, 6-9pm

On view through January 7.

Open Weekends 1-4pm

Closed Dec 23-24, 30-31.

This exciting exhibition will feature new and recent artworks from our talented Affiliate Artists who show their artwork

This show will include a wide variety of mediums including acrylic, watercolor & gouache, encaustic, scratchboard, photography, embroidery, linocuts, watercolor, colored pencil, and more.

Also showing "Paintings in Fiber" by Guest Artist Maureen Ivy Fisher and new works from our five year-round Collective Artists.

Join us for beautiful, interesting art and Holiday Cheer at our last Opening Reception of the year -- Saturday, December 16, 6-9pm

On View December 8 through January 7

Open Weekends | 1-4pm
Closed Dec 23-24, 30-31

See more here: https://www.thebluemoongallery.com/.../we-make-life...

Participating artists: Tony Armendariz, Kristin Ashley, Joan Bredendick, Frank Fitzgerald, Jeanne Garrett, Samira Gdisis, Christine Graf, Mary Neely, Laura O’Connor, Jaynanne RIdder, Les Scott, Rebecca Stahr, Colleen Steenhagen, Sally Wille

Guest Artist: Crystal Marie | Collage Mixed Media

2nd Reception — Saturday, November 18, 6-9pm

On view through December 3.

Open Weekends 1-4pm

Crystal Marie is an artist, author, and creative mentor with a passion for teaching others how to recover their own unique voice. Her process is intuitive, which, she says, is simply the truest, most authentic version of her own voice. 

Following her intuition has been the foundation of Crystal’s career as an artist, when in her 30s a happenstance encounter with a stranger handing her an art magazine was all it took to awaken that long forgotten place inside. 

Today Crystal has an established career as a professional artist with gallery representation, one book published on the art of collage, and is currently writing a book about the process of working intuitively as an artist to overcome blocks in the studio. Crystal has exhibited her work in many fine art exhibitions and solo shows and was the recipient of the 2018 RAM Artist Fellowship. She teaches workshops online and locations across the US. She runs a community for all creatives online called Canary Rising and is part of a small collective of artists who collaborate and show their work together.

FUSEDChicago is an organization of artists in the Midwest who share an interest in encaustic, a method of making art using pigmented wax fused to a surface by heat.

FUSEDChicago artists are painters, sculptors, printmakers, and photographers who bring contemporary sensibilities to their art and use modern technology in creating their work. Many members are inspired by the qualities of wax itself - the brilliance of its colors, its tactility and malleability, the luminescence of wax layers, and the textural possibilities of its surface.

Come experience a dynamic & exciting group exhibition featuring new works from the esteemed FUSEDChicago Artists!

Artist Reception — Saturday, November 18, 6-9pm

On view through December 3

Open Weekends | 1-4pm

“Spirited movement, intimate structure. Light, color, form. Led by intuition and communion, nature’s currency. Healing gesture, earthly poetry of organic nature, held by something geometric and quite universal.” — Janet Trierweiler

Janet is an award winning, contemporary Chicago artist who specializes in abstract, figurative and conceptual collaborative art. She earned her BFA in Studio Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and she is a faculty member at the Evanston Art Center and North Shore Art League where she teaches drawing and painting. She also teaches online through her studio and leads workshops at various venues across the country.

Experience Janet’s captivating small works on paper at the Blue Moon this fall!

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 23, 6-9pm

2nd Reception: Saturday, October 28, 6-9pm

On view through November 5. Open weekens 1-4pm.

Paul Pinzarrone’s digital photographic work explores how nature and power rhyme.  It is a study of candy-colored sensual puzzles displayed on high gloss aluminum or plexiglas and metallic paper. The viewer is drawn in to feel comforted yet disturbed, pulled towards sensuality but paused at the detachment. All are invited in to play and explore…. and wonder if these are mirrors, science fiction, an other-worldly situation, or nightly dreams.

He uses Flame and Amber software, fractal software for patterning, painting software for digital airbrush & air erasure and digital photography to show you his world. Paul has a BFA in painting from the University of Illinois. He has been extensively showing his award-winning work as a solo artist and in group invitational as well as regional, national & international juried exhibitions for photography and figurative works since the 1980’s.

PLUS award-winning pastel artist Darlene Bock — back at the Blue Moon for an encore! — Showing NEW works in landscapes, figuratives, and florals.

Opening Reception — Saturday, August 26, 6-9pm

2nd Reception — Saturday, September 23, 6-9pm

On view through October 15

Open Weekends | 1-4pm

The SPIIRT SERIES

Spirit Sticks, Story Stones, Memory Assemblages, Fractal Photography featuring found objects and nature found at the shores of Lake Michigan — by Colleen Steenhagen

PLUS: NEW one-of-a-kind Spirit Hues Pendants made from burned, painted, waxed & embellished driftwood. Each comes on a cord with a small gemstone bead.

Great gifts or just something nice for yourself.

Opening Reception — Saturday, July 22, 6-9pm

On view through August 20 | Open Weekends 1-4pm.

Guest Artist: Trace Chiodo | The Striking Faces of Golf

EVERY ROUND OF GOLF BEGINS WITH A DRIVER. The Striking Faces of Golf is a collection of abstract illustrations depicting the striking face surfaces of vintage wooden golf clubs. Drawing from his experiences in the world of golf, Trace explores line, shape, and color to characterize the individual beauty of each club. The illustrations are distilled down to a minimalistic form creating a geometric visual language that evokes memories of playing golf with traditional wooden clubs. This series is a sampling of the historical timeline of golf’s number 1 club, the driver.

Opening Reception — Saturday, July 22, 6-9pm

2nd Reception — Saturday, August 26, 6-9pm

On view through September 10.

Open Weekends 1-4pm

Fantastic Fungi & Flora — NEW Paintings by Frank Fitzgerald

Topography Series: Measuring the Earth — Assemblages on Canvas with an Aerial View by Mimi Peterson

2nd Reception — Saturday, July 22, 6-9pm

On View through August 6 | Open Weekends 1-4pm

June Ambro, Ceramic Artist

“I am a maker. From my earliest memories to the present, I have practiced the art of making things: two dimensional, three dimensional, functional pieces, and sculptural objects. Of late, I have dialed into clay as my main medium. The genius of clay is that I get to make a base form (touching & shaping) then create richly layered surfaces employing brush work, drawing, scratching, carving, slips, terra sigillata, and glazes. My attention to surface quality allows me to imbue my work with a sense of time and emotion. Pottery is the most intimate of all art. You cradle it in your hands, and touch it with your lips. my hope is to interact with my user/viewer on a visceral level. As evidenced in this new body of work, I am always pushing to explore new forms, surfaces and firing processes.”

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 27, 6-9pm

2nd Reception: Saturday, June 24, 6-9pm

On View through July 9.

Open Weekends 1-4pm

William R. Weidner — abstract paintings and sculptures featuring color-drenched organic shapes. Weidner’s canvas work involves flatly applied paint with hard, clean, and precise edges. His plaster sculptures are carved, sanded, then finished with monochromatic colors in acrylic paint. 

Samira Gdisis  — hand-pulled black-and-white linocuts produced in the artist’s Racine studio, The Blackeyed Press — from her flora and fauna series “Petals & Wings.”  

Artist Reception: Saturday, May 27, 6-9pm

On View through June 11.

Open Weekends 1-4pm

Les Scott will be showing new scratchart! Les is one of only 3 Illinois Artists in the International Society of Scratch Artists.

“Scratchboard art requires patience. I never hurry and I believe my discipline is reflected in both the composition and detail of each piece I create.” — Les Scott

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 22, 6-9pm

On View through May 14

Open Weekends Sat/Sun 1-4pm

As a fine art exhibition It’s Not All Black and White aims to visually explore two ideas: 1) how black and white as colors dynamically interact with each other and 2) the meaning of the phrase itself – i.e., “to not be clearly defined or differentiated, to have room for confusion, ambiguity, or discrepancy.”

 We also encourage artists to examine these questions —- Is black or white the color of infinity? One contains all colors, the other the absences. Without light, what do we see?

Additionally, as it has been said, in between black and white there are a thousand shades of gray. In a world and culture-at-large where everything has become polarized into exacting absolutes of right-and-wrong, where differing sides or factions cannot discuss, agree to disagree, listen, or learn from each other, and where the false safety of assigning issues with simple black-and-white conclusions is all too common, we assert that the opposite of these phenomena is paramount. It is NOT all black and white.

There is room -- and the need -- for gray.

Guest Juror: Mimi Peterson, Co-Founder and Director of Vital Art Project, Racine WI

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 25, 6-9pm

On View through April 16

Selected Artists: Leslie Armstrong, Kristin Ashley, Sandie Bacon, David Belle, Matt Bellefeuille, Marcia Biasiello, Carole Burval, Jan Elbert, Kathleen Gallo, Jeanne Garrett, Scott Glass, Allison Hausladen, Heather Havlicek, Missy Isely-Poltrock, Joshua Johnson, Shawn Killackey, Ginny Krueger, Cindy Lesperance, Terry Luc, Beth McKenna, George Miller, Kristen Neveu, Laura O'Connor, Clarese Ornstein, Carly Palmer, Regina Roland, Les Scott, Susan Schneider, Roger Shule, Kat Kooi Strack, Ashi Tara, Mindy Tiberi, Sue Turayhi, Kate Uttich, William Weidner, Jeff Wozniak, Debra Zare

Art about the power of healing after loss & grief.

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 25, 6-9pm — On View through March 12

“The shapes in my art are my imaginative visual ideas of what our cells, molecules, and their interactions look like as we encounter the hard work of healing while we simultaneously enter new states of renewal and aliveness that place us on a now different path.  My art is also about experiencing conflicting emotions, sometimes within a single moment — this is a concept our culture-at-large wants us to reject. Many pieces address the co-existence within us of sadness & happiness, anger & compassion, despair & accomplishment, love & loneliness.” — Kendra Kett

IMAGE: Cellular Anatomy of Despair (With Little Rays of Light Shining Through) 16 x 16 Watercolor pencils, colored pencils, paint pens, ink, graphite on watercolor paper

If you didn't get a chance to see the beautiful show we have at the gallery before the holidays, now is your chance!

Saturday, January 7, 1-4pm
Sunday, January 8, 1-4pm

This is a BEAUTIFUL, COLORFUL, EXQUISITE show!

Tom Biegalski -- photography
Jeanne Garrett -- photography
Samira Gdisis -- monoprints, encaustics, collagraphs

See our Collective Artists too!

Laura O'Connor joins a long and strong tradition of women who have turned needlecraft into a vehicle for political expression and commentary on society.

She works primarily in the needlecrafts of embroidery and cross-stitch. Each piece takes time and a good amount of thought to create a tangible product (compared to the relative quickness it takes to write a comment on social media). The results are pithy, sassy, and biting and as a collection they represent a visual journal of the last two years.

"Embroidery is how I work through my frustration and grief related to the pandemic and our current political arena. My work uses a symbol of domesticity and femininity to challenge those same notions." says Laura.

On View through Dec 18.

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 22, 6-9pm

Photo-based Art by Jeanne Garrett

Monoprints & Encaustics by Samira Gdisis

Science-based Photography by Tom Biegalski

On View through January 8. The gallery is open weekends Sat/Sun 1-4pm. Closed December 24-25 & 31 and January 1.