‘Conceptual Realist’ Kate Gridley to Speak at the Inn
We’re keenly anticipating a visit later this month from Middlebury artist Kate Gridley. Kate is the third and final artist in the Edgewater Gallery Winter Lecture Series. She’ll be at the inn on March 31 (additional details below) to present “Tools of the Trade.”
Gridley’s talk will be about her process and some of the stories connected to particular paintings in her latest work, which focuses on antique tools, specifically a collection of tools on loan from the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury. She writes; “While meditating on A.B. Smith’s tools, I have spent months looking into the beauties of form and function, diverse edges and patinas, the interplay of objects and shadows, that beautiful and mysterious realm of objective versus abstraction.”
The tools in Gridley’s latest work remind us a lot of the implements on display throughout the inn, especially those surrounding the grand hearth in our dining room. What better way to appreciate the tools of the past and their inherent beauty than through a painter’s interpretation of them.
Kate Gridley works from her studio in Middlebury, Vermont, and calls herself a conceptual realist. She is a skilled portrait and still life painter whose portrait of the Honorable Governor Jim Douglas hangs in the Vermont State House. After graduating from Williams College, Gridley studied painting in New York and then Florence, Italy, where her focus was on renaissance painting techniques. Her work is held in public and private collections and can be seen at the Vermont State House, the New Hampshire State House, the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, the Middlebury College Museum of Art, and Norwich University, among others. Gridley’s illustrations have appeared in numerous publications.
Who: Conceptual realist painter Kate Gridley
What: Edgewater Gallery Winter Lecture Series “Tools of the Trade,” including a talk and a la carte dinner
When: Thursday, March 31, 2022, 5 pm
Where: The Pitcher Inn Dining Room
How: Call either The Pitcher Inn (802.496.6250) or Edgewater Gallery (802.458.0098) for reservations. Please note that space is limited and the last Winter Series event sold out. Also, attendees are required to show proof of vaccination and wear masks when not seated.