This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 12, 2013 - Some people seem to think that the summer is as good as over the moment that July folds into August. Some people are wrong. The good people at The Tavern of Fine Arts correctly identify the usually hot month of August, in its entirety and despite school schedules, as a month of primo summer living, and viewing, and dining and drinking.
The Tavern’s Summer Art Exhibition showcases the delightfully disparate work of Camden St. Claire, Janice Schoultz Mudd and Adam Long. Janice Schoultz Mudd’s mixed media paintings are jewel-toned dreamscapes. Adam Long puts the natural world to work in his artworks. He uses preserved grape vine tendrils, black walnut leaf stems, preserved fungus and sycamore twigs along with digital photography to create intriguing sculptures that might populate Mudd’s wild and wonderful places.
St. Claire paints people in the aching state of pensive pause that Edward Hopper liked to capture. Like Hopper’s quiet, lonely figures, St. Claire’s subjects exist in stilled air. They appear drained of emotion, resolute and utterly calm. St. Claire paints people whose lives are heavy to bursting, yet never explode. Her paintings could be used as illustrations for the writing of the great American novelists who specialized in deep sadness. Her figures exist in the prairies of Willa Cather, the small towns of Sarah Orne Jewett and the troubled families of Henry James and Sinclair Lewis.
With the unusually mild August that St. Louis is experiencing, the Tavern’s outdoor seating area has been in heavy use. On concert nights the indoor seating areas are often too packed to wander through and adequately view the artwork. For perfect viewing, come early in the evening.
Sarah Hermes Griesbach is a freelance writer.