The Blue Door
York, Maine
“Art is Dangerous” through November 5, 2024
The Blue Door is a wonderful, unassuming gallery in York, Maine. Filled with bright paintings, sculpture, jewelry, hanging glass vases, ceramic mugs and mushrooms, one soon realizes that the title “Art is Dangerous” is tongue-in-cheek. In this election year, this writer was expecting cutting, political works, yet was glad to be proven wrong. Here the only “danger” in the art is how some of the more abstract or least accessible works might challenge the viewer to see new things.
The most daunting aspect of the gallery décor is the twenty-foot, hand dug well that is positioned between the gallery rooms and the holistic medical practice down the short hallway. The well is covered with three-ply glass that is as strong as flooring. It’s unsettling to look down an endless hole while traversing the hall yet this also evokes the history of this building as a stop on the Underground Railway, with one small treatment room dating back to that time though now filled with bright paintings.
This is a fascinating building, recently renovated yet originally dating to 1857. The small gallery rooms have a high, roughly beamed white ceiling which gives air and space to the collection. Next door is a medical practice with various holistic specialties: from primary and chiropractic care on the first floor to acupuncture and massage on the second floor to psychotherapy on the third floor. One of the treatment rooms is also part of the gallery as owner Janice Picone Santini’s dream materializes to combine physical, mental, and spiritual healing.
Photos by CM Judge.
Santini is the designer and director of the gallery as well as an artist herself. Her small paintings of York Harbor in The Rocks #2 and her small, round silkscreen abstractions convey a centered, peaceful energy that rebounds throughout the gallery. Her shows usually last about two months, and they’ve recently had their most successful week as they celebrated their one-year anniversary. Many of their represented artists are included in Art is Dangerous. The 167 works on the walls are exquisitely hung, each with an intact space and identity that does not compete with but rather fits in with the other diverse works. The longer one sits and enjoys the gallery, the better the alchemy of the artists’ space proves to be.
Visitors we chatted with were intrigued with the works and discussed which they liked and why. The large wolf paintings by Alicia Sampson Ethridge drew their interest and ours. This writer enjoyed the humor, spiritual character, and bright painterly texture of the pink wolves.
One is also drawn to the delicate, linear portraits in the entry way by Shaun G. Day or the small, affordable paintings of bananas and pears by Forrest Elliot. This writer loved the quantity and variety of the abstract works, including Eliot’s thick, bright, flat landscape, reminiscent of the textured treats of Wayne Thiebaud. Large and small, they abounded everywhere.
Also fascinating were the pink and thalo paintings of Pamela Bates. Two large works of hers, evoking seaside land and water, were in the lobby of the medical practice. Smaller and more affordable works were scattered elsewhere. The pink Bates uses is striking, especially since she is a member of the group called Pink Abstract Art. It’s not a flat, stereotypical Barbie pink—it’s much more nuanced and subtle, with the lighter pink values sliding in and out of the blues. They show a masterly execution.
Also striking are the small, imaginative, half-anthropomorphic ceramic creatures called “thingies” by Ned Roche and the silver, linear trees on rocks by Ryan Kelley. Called Wire by Kelly, they are exquisite. Also beautiful were the hanging, teardrop glass vases in rainbow hues by Janet Zug and other glass works by Gordo Glass.
It is well worth the trip to York to see the gallery and this treat of a show. Enjoy it before it closes on November 5. https://blue-door-gallery.square.site/