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Reaching for Center

Featured Artist: Betty Blayton-Taylor

A first ever collaborative effort among three Harlem galleries — Canvas Paper and Stone Gallery, Essie Green Galleries and Strivers Garden Gallery — features the work of one artist, Betty Blayton-Taylor, whose work has not been featured in Harlem in more than twenty years. So who is this phenomenal person?

I met Betty Blayton about a year ago when Ben Jones, my artist-godfather said there's someone I want you to meet. He brought me to Betty and said Betty this is Averlyn who has a wonderful gallery in Harlem. You should let her see some of your work. At that prompting Betty gave me a DVD which she happened to have with her.

After reviewing the DVD and a few phone calls we had set a date for October 2008; As it happened, she was having other conversations with two other Harlem galleries, and suddenly we had a trifecta of sorts.

It's Mine

Blayton has received all of the appropriate honors, the 1984 Empire State Woman of the Year in the Arts; the 1989 New York State Governors Art Award, the 1995 CBS Martin Luther King Jr., Fulfilling the Dream Award; Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Caucus for Art in 2005, to name just a few. Her artistic excellence reaches far beyond the collector, gallery owner and appreciator of her abstract style. A self-described "spiritual impressionist", Betty Blayton’s brilliant round abstractions, some measuring 60 inches in diameter, reflect both a spiritual and artistic transcendence from her earlier representational work. In an interview in the 1990s, Betty reflected, "I came to a transition point where I realized that the visceral is more important than the literal in visual communication."

And from her own words came the title of our show... "So It Is With Us"

In Search of the Gap

Not Just the Arts!

Betty founded the Children's Art Carnival in 1969 as a place that was lots of fun, a carnival where children would be supported in all of their visual arts endeavors. With classes in sculpture, painting, mixed media and film making for almost forty years, the school has now taught two generations of some families, operating morning and evening sessions as well as having sites in schools throughout four boroughs of New York City. This pioneering work has been recognized in the adoption by the New York State Board of Regents of Arts in the Integrated Curriculum for the entire school system.

During all of this, Blayton has managed to continue to create meaningful art, showing in different galleries and museums throughout the country. Her work can be found in the Metropolitan Museum and the Studio Museum in Harlem, as well as in several major collections including Philip Morris Company. On any day she can be found in her studio painting or at the press printing.

Bridges on Life's Journey

As Blayton's work hangs at the gallery, I have had the pleasure of spending many hours in quiet contemplation of several pieces. This art asks us, rather, requires us to look inward as it personifies continuity and completion guiding us to our innate perfection with nothing more being added, and most importantly with no thing being taken away. Enjoy!

Garden of Isis

Feel free to contact Betty via email.