Kathleen Heron: Unbelievable, Believable
7 Erwin Park, Upper Montclair
Gretchen Warsen:: Love Notes in Spring
Freeman Garden
644 Hawthorne Avenue, Glen Ridge
Francesca Castagnoli found a rather interesting way to cope with her son going off to art school — the idea came to her at the exact moment she was passing one of those tiny libraries along Watchung Avenue in Montclair.
“What if I put a gallery in there instead of books? Castagnoli said.
The Tiny Gallery might be the most whimsical and innovative way to display art to emerge in recent years. It seems that everywhere they pop up – there are now six galleries across Montclair and Glen Ridge – people can’t get enough of it.
Kathleen Heron, the Orange-born artist who just had a show opening at the Tiny Gallery at 7 Erwin Park, believes that part of the appeal of exhibiting art this way is that it makes art approachable.
“An art gallery can be intimidating,” Heron said. “People think they need to know something about art so they don’t go in or maybe they think they’re expected to buy something.”
The works displayed are for sale, but at a much lower price point, Heron said, giving art lovers an affordable way to own pieces by their favorite artists.
At Gretchen Warsen’s abstract art show opening in April at Glen Ridge’s Freeman Gardens, some of the attendees wandered into the exhibition from off the street, some were wearing sneakers, some brought their dogs along. The pretension that art is usually associated with gets thrown out the window in this setting.
Warsen said that we need more wonderment in our daily lives and Castagnoli’s mission provides this.
“One of my favorite things to do was walk around the city and just happen upon things – an outdoor performance or a work of art,” said Warsen, who used to live in Boston.
It’s also an intimate experience – the gallery is only big enough for one, maybe two people to view the art.
One of the words Castagnoli uses to describe her mission is “democratic,” meaning she wants her galleries to host both elementary school students and some of the bigger names in Montclair’s art scene, such as Ira Wagner, who has an upcoming show.
“We want the artists to take their work, their approach, see what happens when you paint something that is two inches or three inches,” Castagnoli said.
There is a seriousness to her endeavor that not everyone understands – art spaces aren’t abundant as they once were. Tiny Galleries are inexpensive, take up little room, and have zero overhead. Before the first Tiny Gallery was unveiled in front of Castagnoli’s Dutch Colonial on Stanford Place, not everyone understood what she wanted to do. Some, she said, got caught up in the idea of doll-sized art as something cute.
“I was telling people at cocktail parties and they were looking at me kind of funny,” she said.
Castagnoli ran the idea by her artist friend Yana Rodin, a long time Montclair resident who moved to Seattle six years ago. Rodin said she “got it” immediately and agreed to be the first exhibiting artist at the debut Tiny Gallery.
“I was the one who coined her a tiny gallerist – I think she even puts that on her business cards,” Rodin said proudly. “It’s bringing her so much joy and it’s amazing that this idea has taken off.”
There was a learning curve involved. Early iterations of the Tiny Gallery didn’t anticipate the amount of sunlight these habitats would get and its potential to fade the art inside. But now Castagnoli has it down to a science. The latest models even feature solar-powered, motion-sensored lights so that audiences can enjoy the shows during an evening stroll.
“We joke that our problems are very tiny, but we want this to be big,” Castagnoli said. “We want them to be everywhere – in train stations, hospitals, and airports.
