Carl Cherry Center for the Arts

"Shared Visions: The Cherry at Seventy-Five" Art Exhibition
2023-07-14 - 2023-09-23 | The Carl Cherry Center, Fourth and Guadalupe, Carmel, CA, 93921, United States
This summer, the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts illuminates the connection between the artwork and poetry of Jeanne D’Orge (Mrs. Carl Cherry) and contemporary local artists and poets in celebration of the center’s seventy-fifth year.
Opening Friday, July 14th, Shared Visions: The Cherry Center at Seventy-Five will include paintings, drawings and sculpture by ten area artists displayed alongside select works by Jeanne D’Orge from the Cherry Center’s private collection. Participating artists include Tracey Adams, Robert Armstrong, Rob Barnard, Jennifer Brook-Kothlow, Jamie Dagdigian, Judith Foosaner, Susan Hyde Greene, Ken Hale, Margaret Rinkovsky, and the Temple Sisters. An artists’ reception will be held Friday, July 14th, from 5-7pm. The event is free and open to the public.
Artists featured in this exhibition have created works that reinterpret and remix elements, themes and the palette of Jeanne D’Orge, and highlight ways art inspires across time. Their works speak to the expanding diversity of the stories we want to tell, and illustrate how today’s artists continue to find inspiration in the methods and pictorial traditions from the Cherry Center’s rich history.
The exhibit will close Saturday, September 23rd.

Shared Visions: The Cherry at Seventy-Five Poetry Reading
A poetry reading will be held at the Cherry Center on Friday, July 28th, at 7pm. Poets Jennifer Lagier, George Lober, Anne Mitchell, and Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts will read selections of their poetry alongside the writing of Mrs. Cherry; each offering insight into the other. Reservations required. Tickets are by donation, available on eventbrite.com or by calling (831) 624-7491. The Cherry Center is located on the northwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Guadalupe Street, Carmel.
Pictured, left: Untitled – Jeanne D’Orge
Pictured, right: “A Spider in the House” – Tracey Adams

About the Artists:
Jeanne D’Orge took up painting at the age of fifty-four at the urging of her husband, Carl Cherry. Although her paintings were recognized in her lifetime for their forcefulness and spirit — with exhibits at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Park Avenue Galley in New York City, and De Young Museum in San Francisco — D’Orge insisted her paintings never be sold, saying, “I’m just a paintbrush for God.”
Tracey Adams has been an exhibiting artist for over 35 years. She has participated in over 175 solo and group exhibitions in the United States and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Monterey Museum of Art, Fresno Art Museum and the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. Adams’ paintings are included in the permanent collections of the Bakersfield Museum of Art, Crocker Museum, Hunterdon Art Museum, Monterey Museum of Art, Fresno Art Museum, Tucson Art Museum and Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
Robert Armstrong grew up in Salinas, California, and attended UC Berkeley as an art major. A mechanical technician by trade, he worked for a geophysical company, a survey group and on a photon accelerator. Armstrong’s interest in geology, physics and engineering informs his art. His exhibitions tend to be large, unique installations, with interesting titles, humor and irony.
Rob Barnard was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1949. He began studying pottery at the University of Kentucky in 1971 after serving in Vietnam with the United States Marine Corps. In 1974 he was admitted to the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen and accepted as a research student at Kyoto University of Fine Arts in Kyoto, Japan where he studied under the late Kazuo Yagi. He has returned to Japan numerous times since 1978 for solo exhibitions in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. Besides Japan, Barnard exhibits widely both in the United States and Great Britain.
Jennifer Brook-Kothlow was born and raised in San Francisco. Her training began in the early 1960’s as an undergraduate art major at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and continued with studies in ceramics under Betty Woodman, as well as extension courses at the San Francisco Art Institute under Frank Lobdell. She has dedicated her life to art practice and has continued to produce paintings and mono-prints influenced by the Abstract Expressionist style for the past fifty years.
Jamie Dagdigian is an artist and designer currently living and working on the Monterey Peninsula. He is an instructor and the Art Department Chairman at Monterey Peninsula College and has been creating mixed-media work while teaching both art and design.
Judith Foosaner is a mixed-media artist who incorporates elements of collage and free-hand sketches into her large-scale acrylic works on canvas–dramatic, gestural black and white works where linear elements suggest letters from some unknown alphabet, poetry written in a language we can’t quite translate.
Susan Hyde Greene is an award-winning fine art photographer. She cuts her images apart then stitches them back together in a reflection of relationships and humanity. Susan is an avid traveler whose artwork is created from images around the world.
Kenneth J. Hale (born 1948) received a BA in 1971 from California State University at Long Beach and a MFA from the University of Illinois (Urbana) in 1973. After graduation he moved to Austin, Texas to teach at the University of Texas in the Department of Art and Art History. In addition to the AP/RC, his paintings, prints, and drawings are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY), The National Museum of American Art (Washington, DC), the Achenbach Foundation (San Francisco), the McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX), the Chicago Art Institute (IL), the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MA) and the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth (TX).
Susan Hyde Greene is an award-winning fine art photographer. She cuts her images apart to then stitch them back together in a reflection of relationships and humanity. An avid traveler, her artwork is created from images from all over the world. Greene received her BFA in textiles, photography, and art history from the University of Hawaii, Manoa and her MFA from the University of Utah. Her work is in several public and private collections, including Adobe Systems.
Margaret Rinkovsky is a painter currently living in Santa Cruz, California. She received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree from UCLA. She also holds a Masters of Arts degree in Printmaking and a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting, also from UCLA. Ms. Rinkovsky is the recipient of the prestigious SECA Award from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, was a nominee to the American Academy of Arts in New York, and received the Distinguished Artist Award from the Santa Cruz Art League.
The Temple Sisters – Holly and Ashlee Temple – work in mixed media to generate works on paper, canvas and create small assemblages. Each work they devise is meant to engage the viewer in questions about the temporal and fluid nature of image, memory, and the cultural language of expression.

The Spirit is Alive at 75!
2023-09-02 15:00 - 18:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
The Carl Cherry Center for the Arts celebrates seventy-five years of bringing art, music, literature and drama to the Monterey Peninsula on Saturday, September 2nd, from 3-6 pm.

The Carl Cherry Center, originally called the Carl Cherry Foundation, was established in 1948 by Jeanne D’Orge (Mrs. Carl Cherry), to provide arts programing to the Monterey Peninsula and as a testament to the potential of arts in community.
“Our seventy-fifth anniversary provides a chance to reflect on the numerous ways the art center’s exhibitions, classes, events, and school programs have made an impact on thousands of people in our community,” said Robert Reese, the Cherry Center’s executive director. “This landmark anniversary also provides a chance for us to look forward to our future as we continue to provide significant and meaningful arts programs to the community, working towards our vision to make art an essential part of Monterey County.”

Wine and light fare start off the event, with special entertainment that includes a reading by award-winning writer Jane Smiley, Dylan and Dylan preview, and prose and poetry reading by Patrice Vecchione. The celebration will also include performances by several music groups, and a silent auction. “Shared Visions,” a far-reaching exhibition showcasing artists with an affiliation to the artwork of Jeanne D’Orge, will also be on display.Tickets for the event are $65, available on Eventbrite.com or by calling (831) 624-7491. The Cherry is located on the northwest corner of Fourth Avenue and Guadalupe, Carmel.
About Us:
The Carl Cherry Center for the Arts is your place to discover art. Established in 1948 by Mrs. Carl Cherry in her husband’s name, the center provides an accessible and welcoming place to engage with art. We serve approximately 10,000 people every year through a diverse range of programs. The Carl Cherry Center is funded, in part, through grants from the Arts Council for Monterey County, the Community Foundation for the Monterey County, Monterey Peninsula Foundation, the Mitchell Foundation, and private donations.

Special Guests:
Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and the Last Hundred Years Trilogy: Some Luck, Early Warning, and Golden Age. She is the author as well of several works of nonfiction and books for young adults.

The Monterey Peninsula’s celebrated bard and biographical dramatist Taelen Thomas collaborates with artists Steve Mortensen, Laura Burian, and Dixie Dixon for a beguiling excursion into the lives, minds and works of two passionate and unpredictable literary geniuses who share a name: Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan.

For many years, Patrice Vecchione has taught poetry and creative writing to young people through her program, The Heart of the Word: Poetry and the Imagination. She is currently Poet-In-Schools for the Cherry Center’s high school poetry program, and judge of the Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts Monterey County High School Poetry Awards.
