NORTHFIELD — An exhibit celebrating the relationship between visual art and literature is on display at Fiddleheads Gallery.
“Sometimes [writing] inspires art, sometimes art inspires writing,” said Marge Anderson, president of the Deerfield Valley Art Association (DVAA) that runs Fiddleheads Gallery at 105 Main St. “At Fiddleheads Gallery, we try to have some interesting themed exhibits, along with our traditional members’ exhibits. … Sometimes somebody comes up with a great idea, like this one, and we try to accommodate that.”
This exhibit, called “Literately Inspired,” was born out of an idea from Kathleen Johnson, a DVAA board member.
“The current show … originated from a casual conversation Marge and I were having one day while relishing in the success [of] a recent show,” Johnson wrote in an email. “I merely mentioned that it would be great if we could somehow come up with a show that included words. While we mostly think of art in the usual way — paintings, photos and sculptures — words are also a form of art.”
An artists’ reception will be held Sunday, Aug. 18, from 2 to 4 p.m. Additionally, there will be readings from local authors Marian Kelner and Karma Kitaj on Thursdays, Aug. 22 and Aug. 29, respectively. The events will begin with music and food at 5:15 p.m., with readings following at 6 p.m.
Penny Pitts, a local mosaic artist and former DVAA treasurer, created a piece for the exhibit. “It was one of those pieces that just kind of grew on its own, one thing leading to another,” Pitts explained.
Pitts is passionate about evolutionary biology and a fan of Charles Darwin. Her piece features a portrait of Darwin, surrounded by various animals important to his research, including beetles, earthworms and barnacles.
“I just admire [Darwin] tremendously, not only for his work and his theories, but because he had to be brave to say anything about them, which I identify with,” Pitts noted. “He knew he’d get a backlash and I know that’s never easy in this world.”
Pitts added that she included a stromatolite, a fossil of photosynthesizing microorganisms, in the piece, because she feels Darwin would have loved to get to see the expanse of knowledge currently available about fossils — an area of research just beginning to be explored in his time.
“Literately Inspired” will be on display through Sept. 15. Fiddleheads Gallery is open in the summer on Thursdays from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. and on Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. More information can be found at deerfieldvalleyart.org.
