May 5, 2018
The gift of art keeps growing and expanding, and two art galleries in Genesee and Orleans will be opening — or reopening — their doors this week.
ART OF MANDY
Holding a grand opening on Saturday with a ribbon cutting at 2 p.m. and an open house following afterwards until 4:30 p.m., the Art of Mandy will be celebrating its new home in Le Roy on 20 Main St. with crafts, art, snacks a gift basket raffle and more.
“It’s basically a public art studio,” said Mandy Humphrey, owner. “I’m offering classes for kids and adults, ages two and up.”
Teaching drawing, painting and photography, Humphrey also does paint parties where people bring in beverages and she goes step by step in how to paint a picture. She also offers parent and me classes where a parent paints one canvas and the child paints another to make a scene. Humphrey said she also offers a lot of wooden sign classes, as well as teaching classes at Le Roy Elementary School and to the elderly at the Village Greens.
Renting a space in Batavia for the past year, she said it was a very small room and couldn’t expand. Humphrey then rented her new location on Main Street in Le Roy.
“I live here, so I wanted to bring something that I love into this town,” she said when asked why she decided to open her studio in the village. Humphrey grew up in Stafford and went to school in Le Roy, and now lives just outside the town limits. “It’s a nice town, but not a ton to do. Also there is kind of an art studio in almost every town honestly, but Le Roy doesn’t have one.”
Always loving art since high school, Humphrey said she went to SUNY Cortland for a fine arts degree before getting her master’s from the Rochester Institute of Technology in art education. Teaching in a few different school districts for a couple of years, Humphrey said she decided to leave to do more private art classes.
“(The biggest misconception about art is) you aren’t talented or can’t do that. People say that all the time — well it’s adults who say that,” she said. “They think they can’t sign up for a class because they aren’t good at art, but that’s really not true because I go step by step. People are really surprised when they are done because they really can do it.”
For anyone who is interested in signing up for a class, they can call Humphrey directly at (585) 356-2533 or visit her website at www.theartofmandy.com.
MARTI’S ON MAIN
After two years of being closed, Marti’s on Main in Albion once again opens its doors.
“I missed it so much,” said Kim Martillotta, who is the owner, explaining it closed in the first place due to a leak and the insurance company paid only for a tenth of what the damage was before they tried to jack up the premiums. For a year she hung artwork at the Cobblestone Museum before deciding to reopen her doors this year.
Each month, Marti’s on Main features at least one local artist from May to November. Martillotta said sometimes there will be more than one and in the past, she featured four artist in a month. In the past she hung shows on both floors, but with the re-opening decided to hang the artwork only downstairs. The artist from this month — Howard “Tony” Barry, a former Holley art teacher — paints all over the world.
Paintings aren’t the only thing which are showcased at the gallery. Sculptures, metal work and every medium, and she said that she’s done a lot of collage shows.
This will be the first show since reopening, and are held on the first Friday of the month from 6-9 p.m. The artists are usually available to speak to and Martillotta said it’s a social gathering.
“I’m usually the biggest buyer of art,” she laughed. “I’ll hang the artwork and go, ‘Oh my God, I need to have that. Then I end up with one.”
Martillotta said the other side of the house — the gallery is located in a double and is on the left hand side — is where she lives. She said even though the art in the gallery is for sale (the price is listed on the tags underneath the painting), it’s not a big seller which is unfortunate because someone can spend a couple hundred dollars and enjoy it the rest of their lives.
When working on the set “Somewhere in Europe,” Martillotta said it took her three months to paint the eight pictures, which she worked on at the same time. She said she needs to work on multiple pieces of art at one time, so when she is waiting for paint to dry on one piece, she can move on to the next one. However, her favorite medium is assemblage sculpting.
“(A common misconception about art) is that it’s a hobby for people,” she said. “It’s not a hobby. It’s our life.”
Getting into art at age 7, Martillotta took a lot of art classes in high school and after 10 years of going to high school, she went to college for art.
While the gallery, located at 227 N. Main St. in Albion, is free, there is a suggested donation of $5. The hours are 6-9 p.m. on the first Friday, otherwise the doors are open whenever she’s home and to simply check in.
