Artshorts	A Natural Muse by Cynnie Gaasch

The past month offered some of the finest tree reflecting opportunities I recall. The colors and lines of the mighty oaks and maples in Delaware Park have been downright awesome over the last couple of weeks.

Predicting the inspiring forces of nature, the Neighborhood Collective Gallery at 810 Elmwood Avenue put together an exhibit of seven artists work, all about “Trees.” Monica Angle, Peter Dyett, Mark Lavatelli, Nathan Naetzker, Catherine Parker, Christopher Stangler, and Catherine Linder Spencer each show examples of their own personal investigation of the tall sources of shade, protection, and warmth in this show that will be with us through November 26.

Walking up into the gallery at Neighborhood Collective is a little like climbing into a tree house. Up the stairs, into a relatively low ceilinged space, and over a balcony, you can look out a wall of windows that shows you the trees that line Elmwood and cradle the Lexington Co-op against the blue sky. I recommend visiting the sun-filled space during the daylight hours. Into the gallery, and you are surrounded by the many worlds of these artists, each one giving a different experience of the surface, the vista, the lines of trees. The natural complexity of the giants is a ripe muse for an artist’s brush, camera lens or mixed media.

Catherine Parker’s “Cottonwood Trees” is painted with energetic and loose brush strokes. Charcoal delineates the rough edges. Green, white and purple layer to fill the muscular form of the tree’s solid trunk, and the white paint shows the reflection of sunlight. The artist’s bravado shines through. “Tree Roots” shows a tangled and dangerous mess, largely painted in black and white. The structure pushes across the surface of the paper and creates a foreboding space.

Nathan Naetzker’s paintings made of images captured by a camera last December and this August in the middle of the night—lit by the reflection of light on snow—and at dusk. The paintings become almost two-tone with a line of trees creating a silhouette against a field of midnight blue or hazy green. These works are deeply intimate, portraying a beautifully selected moment, and giving power to a sense of solitude and quiet.

“Tree Glyph #3” and Tree Glyph #5” by Mark Lavatelli are a dance of line and form on a field of muted color. Working into layers of oil paint and encaustic, the artist carves out the lines of tree branches, opening a web across the surface of the painting. The colors revealed below flicker. It is not as if these paintings look like a true representation of a painting, honed down to linear descriptions of graceful branches. They do, however, clearly portray the enjoyable act of looking at a tree, noticing every turn and bend, nook and cranny, as branches weave around each other, stretching forward and back above you.

Rust and Mass

Robert Schulman’s photographs of “Dumpsters and Other Strangers” are on display through November 19 at Artsphere Studio on Amherst Street. Schulman explores the Modernist presence of these ubiquitously giant and boxy objects. He manages to find moments that transform the photographs into Russian Constructivist paintings—clunky structures bending against each other. The rust of age provides the contrast in these works that will have you noticing beauty in the ugliest corners of your travels.