ROCK SRINGS — Rock Springs artist Gwendolyn Quitberg has “planted a garden” with her paintings at White Mountain Library now through August. The exhibit titled “This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Garden” consists of 20 floral images she painted during the spring.
“I loved my Grandma’s flower garden. There’s a reason why old farm women planted irises and glads and self-perpetuating hollyhocks,” said Quitberg.
“They didn’t have time to baby flowers that didn’t produce a showy bloom and needed little care to do so. They were too busy weeding and tending the garden we ate from, which was itself a thing of beauty. The flower garden was a tender afterthought, a fleeting burst of color enjoyed between haying and milking and kids. I don’t have my Grandma Luella’s green thumb or good black dirt, but I do have my paints and memories. Perhaps these impressions of flowers are not what she expected to grow, or what anyone else sees, but they are my perpetual garden.”
Using a palette knife instead of traditional brushes, Quitberg works with thick oil paints applying the paint and moving it across the panel to create expressionistic florals. The colors are both pure and blended as the shapes take form being worked by the knife.
Quitberg has exhibited in the Sweetwater County Library System several times, including the Community Fine Arts Center, at the Downtown Rock Springs “Artember” event and she works at the CFAC.
The Exhibits Committee of the Library System meets throughout the year to review applications and schedule exhibits. Artists interested in displaying their work are encouraged to submit an application for an individual exhibit. Application packets are available at any county library circulation desk and at the Community Fine Arts Center.
The Exhibits Committee is made up of community members Angie Bennett, Deon Quitberg and Donna Ragsdale, all from Green River, and library system members Michelle Krmpotich, Lindsey Travis, and Debora Soule.
For more information about these exhibits and other library events, visit the Library System web page http://www.sweetwaterlibraries.com or on Facebook www.facebook.com/sweetlibraries. Questions can be directed to Soule at the Community Fine Arts Center in Rock Springs.
