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ArtCrawl Harlem II - Close Up

by Averlyn Archer

On Saturday, August 9, the second of this arts and tourism program kicks off with ten Harlem art galleries, presented by ArtCrawl Harlem. The 5 hour tour event will be followed by a rooftop reception overlooking the Hudson River. You can get your early bird tickets now at www.artcrawlharlem.com and for more information go to ArtSlant.

This ArtCrawl Harlem preview takes a look at two Harlem galleries; one, Strivers Garden Gallery which is new to the event; and the other, Essie Green Galleries, is a returning venue.

Strivers Gardens Gallery, located at 300 West 135th Street, has been open since 2006. The Gallery has hosted three major exhibitions: "Syncopated Threads: Feel the Rhythm, See the Music- The Harlem Girls Quilters Circle", The Art of Bryan Collier: "A Community of Purpose and Promise" and "Harlem Homecoming 2008: Selected Works by Ademola Olugebefola 1968 - 2008."

The "Syncopated Threads" show was held in conjunction with an US postage stamp unveiling of the Gee's Bend Postage Stamp and was attended by the artists from Gee's Bend. "The Harlem Homecoming 2008" exhibition was featured on New York 1. Each of the exhibitions was visited by over 100 visitors.

During ArtCrawl Harlem on view will be the work of Betty Blayton in "So It Is With Us - BETTY BLAYTON: 40 Years of Selected Works." Blayton has not been exhibited in Harlem for over twenty years and Strivers Garden Galleries will serve as the linchpin for a three gallery show of this important artist's work.

Betty Blayton has established a distinguished career as an exhibiting artist both nationally and internationally. She has an impressive career as both an artist and administrator. Dedicated to art education, Blayton was an adjunct professor for The City College of New York and assisted in the founding of the Children Arts Carnival in Harlem, serving as its Executive Director for almost thirty years from 1968 until 1997. As one of the founding members of the Studio Museum of Harlem, she served on its board from 1965 to 1975.

Described by John Canady of The New York Times as "expert, delicately colored abstractions", Betty Blayton's paintings and prints involve solid and transparent abstract forms that overlay and merge into each other in translucent and fluid motions. The spirit of creative chance and improvisation is balanced by her mastery of the mediums she uses to create (Kevin Sapp, Hammond House). According to Chrystal A. Britton, Blayton's artwork is coded in the metaphysical; "The sphere included in many of her works refers to wholeness, the relationship between man and nature in the most ultimate sense. Thus her works serve as a gateway to higher spiritual levels."

The gold standard is Essie Green Galleries which sells the works of such notable artists as Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Charles Ethan Porter, Edwin Bannister, Allen Stringfellow, Sam Gilliam, Alma Thomas,William S. Carter and many other artists of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The gallery was first established as the Park Plaza Gallery in Park Slope, Brooklyn New York, in 1980. With its connection to and rapport with Bearden who was the Gallery's mentor, this institution was encouraged to devote its talents to establishing a gallery dedicated to the work of the Black fine arts masters. The result led to the founding of Essie Green Galleries.

It has contributed to and exhibited at distinguished institutions such as The Smithsonian in Washington D.C., The High Museum in Atlanta, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, the College of William and Mary in Virginia, The Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford CT, the Studio Museum in Harlem and The Katzen Center at American University in Washington D.C. The gallery has appeared in television programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, HGTV, PBS and A&E. Essie Green Galleries has also been written about in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun as well as several magazines.

Essie Green Galleries will be another venue for the upcoming exhibition by artist Betty Blayton.

Don't miss this opportunity to check out the summer's offerings at Harlem's hottest art venues. Go to artcrawlharlem today and sign up for the Early Bird Special.

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