Emergence

Emergence will be the theme for this year’s Umbrella Studio Artists group exhibition, launching during annual Open Studios and running through May 13. Resident artists, subletters, Artists in Residence, and Artcubator Artists share work representing our emergence after the past two years of dealing with the pandemic. Emergence will be displayed in The Umbrella Main Gallery and in our ArtCloud Online Gallery, where artworks may also be purchased. Free and open to the public. 

 

 

The full emergence is yet unseen.

This is the brave beginning.

We are not yet fully formed after more than two years underground,

yet see the joy that we have here—

an antidote to all the fear and rage,

the hate and lies,

the greed and doubt,

for now the truth lies right 

before your eyes.

We are emerging from the darkness

and will rise.

We are caught in the process of creation.

Underground our roots grew strong,

our art grew stronger.

Our time is now.

We are emerging from the darkness.

See us rise.

At the beginning of March 2020, we had just finished hanging our show in anticipation of our Open Studios the first weekend of April.  Then, two days later the whole world stopped and we, like the rest of the world, closed down under the raging pandemic we would come to know as COVID.

Everyone was sequestered in their homes. Businesses, schools, churches, doctors offices, stores -- everything we had come to consider to be part of our everyday lives suddenly came to a stop, and few things were more impacted than the arts.  Our theater was closed, there was no Open Studios, classes were canceled, and the doors to our building were locked, only accessible to the staff and the artists who were given fobs so that they could work in their studios. Masking and social distancing were imperative and fear was everywhere, but somehow, inside our studios, art was still alive; and as we worked in our separate spaces we became part of a collective hive of creativity, branching out, beginning something new, or going on a different path altogether; stopping and starting, privileged in the knowledge that at least here there was a place of community and peace where we could make our art even though we weren’t allowed to gather.

This will be our first real Open Studios since we closed our doors in 2020, and we are excited to invite you into the gallery to see what we have been up to in our studios during our pandemic time underground. Our doors are opened wide and our show is hung.  This is our emergence.  Please take your time and get to know us all again.  We are renewed and our time is now.