Bristol Dental Group through Spring 2007

Studio

Doll 9” x 5.5”

“Swan Song”

65.00

Nina Gaby

Platters, Dolls and Collage

The Bristol Dental Group

1330 Exchange Street

Middlebury, Vermont

June through September 2006

Platter 10” x 13”

“Flat Rectangle with Confetti”

200.00

Nina Gaby at the Bristol Dental Group Office in Middlebury:

Middlebury artist Patty LeBon-Herb began curating this beautiful newly constructed office space last year at in collaboration with Dr. Kim Montgomery. His dental group had determined that this would make a wonderful place to showcase the work of Vermont artists. Gaby’s is the fifth grouping of works displayed in the office.

LeBon-Herb is in discussion with the owner of 1330 Exchange about curating the entire building. It currently houses, besides Bristol Dental, a pediatric group and a neurology clinic. New offices for a chiropractic practice are being built. The airy and angular lobby space will provide walls which will accommodate installations and large canvases.

Gaby…“There is a dearth of gallery space in Vermont to accommodate all the artists who live and work in this state. The Bristol Group is to be congratulated on helping to alleviate this problem in a way so mutually beneficial to artists, patients and the professionals who get to work around all this creativity every day.”

Gaby is showing a collection of 25 smoked earthenware platters. The platters are designed as decorative pieces to be used on table or wall much as one would use a painting or sculpture.

These decorative platters are formed from a combination of wheel thrown and slab built white earthenware.

They are initially fired twice to mature the clay and the glaze.

The nature of the clay is porous which allows for random carbon to deposit in the clay during the third firing, the sawdust smoking.

The patterns are spontaneous, with flashing and small surface cracks an expected part of the process.

Gaby…“I became fascinated with the overlapping of the circle, the oval, the ellipse, and the occasional rectangle.

The surface treatments, additional layers of shape softened by the smoking process, allow for a dynamism to emerge between the elements”

Along with the platters, Gaby is exhibiting collage, and her earthenware/mixed media dolls. This is the first time the dolls have been shown outside of Gaby’s own Brookfield gallery.

The doll forms are formed from slab built terra cotta and white earthenware and as with the platters, they are fired multiple times.

Gaby…“My years as a psychotherapist and my fascination with behavioral manifestation of conflict has led to this grouping of objects.

After all, what is more projective than the archetype of the doll in parody of human form?”