By Jen Thomas - February 02, 2008
ADAMS - Just four months after the space at 43 Park St. was transformed into a combination wireless cafe and computer repair shop, the Community Gallery at Net Beans Cafe and Auxier Computers is set to host its first exhibition.
"When we first opened this place, I immediately thought 'We've got great walls for a gallery,'" said Adelle Michaud, the shop's cafe manager and an avid art collector.
Graphic designer and locally-based artist Richard Harrington is organizing the show, which will feature his own works and art by two other Berkshire natives - Michael Miller and Joanna Gabler. An opening reception will be held at the space on Thursday, Feb. 7, at 6 p.m.
"I'm nervous about our first opening. It's impossible to gauge how the audience will react but I'm also optimistic. I'm eager to see how bringing people from all over New England will affect the artist community. How does the insight of artists interact with what the community expects of art?" Harrington, an Adams native, asked.
Michaud and Harrington are working with shop owner Tim Auxier to ready the store for its first show. The cafe, which features a variety of coffee and pastry products, wireless Internet, desktop computer access for $1 an hour and half-a-dozen comfy chairs for lounging, is the perfect spot for a community arts show, Auxier said.
"There really wasn't a place in Adams for this sort of merging of talents. It's just a nice, local, community space," Auxier said.
The show will feature several floral paintings by Gabler, a native of Poland who emigrated to the United States in the 1980s and moved to the Northern Berkshires in 2002, and Miller, whose photography work focuses on decaying industrial objects. Harrington, a former Adobe employee, uses Adobe products to create digital prints of abstract shapes in a myriad of colors.
The three friends have participated in group shows before but Harrington said he hopes this particular show will highlight each artist's individual talent while also encouraging dialogue about the growing art atmosphere in the county.
"It's like the second wave of the Hudson River School [a mid-19th-century art movement that used Hudson River landscapes as inspiration] and it's interesting to see the three unique perspectives of creativity from three astute scholars on the subject," said Harrington. "The level of art activity here is intense and the fact that it's taking place here is fascinating."
And Harrington can't wait to introduce that artist community to the Net Beans Cafe.
"It's got everything and it's a mix of the old and the new, which is a lot like what Adams is like," said Harrington. "We're your 21st-century general store."
For further information about the show, contact Richard Harrington at rh_hoosac@yahoo.com.
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