Renaissance Gallery Art: The Bowersock's New Years 2011 Art Resolutions

Renaissance Gallery Art: The Bowersock's New Years 2011 Art Resolutions: "Every year, every body we know has to mention their New Year's Resolutions during any holiday party or family get together. This year, we ha..."

The Bowersock's New Years 2011 Art Resolutions

Every year, every body we know has to mention their New Year's Resolutions during any holiday party or family get together. This year, we have decided NOT to talk about exercise....nor weight gain or loss....nor new and exciting exercise programs that make you sweat and feel miserable! We talked it over while eating Lemon Pound Cake along with hot chocolate with marsh mellows for breakfast yesterday and decided it was just foolish for us to make those kinds of promises. We will just break them and feel guiltier than we do now. We talked about the guilt and then decided that a glass of egg nog goes well with guilt.

Neither one of us felt much better, so we went back to bed and read awhile and took a nap...at 10:30 a.m. By 1 p.m. we found ourselves sitting on the couch in front of our warm fire in the Buck Stove with the Christmas tree lit and our little Snow Village all carefully arranged on the coffee table. While we were writing Christmas cards, we began to talk again about what New Year's resolutions we really want to make.

• We plan to let the Spirit of Christ's birth and the Christmas angel be our guiding light throughout the coming year.
• We are going to do some painting of the Snow Villiage that you see pictured here, glowing with the Angel light and find some of our youthful, innocent spirit through the art the we create from this inspirational village.
• We are GOING to draw, sketch, paint or photograph every day...something worthwhile everyday.
• We are GOING to clean up Bruce's studio.....again.
• We are GOING to catalog Bruce's 900 art books and shelve them by subject (ha ha ha).
• We are GOING to finish building the best "how to draw" website the world has every seen! This site will showcase Bruce and give insight to how he sees, draws, thinks, renders and paints. Visit him at http://www.4artcoach365.com/ if you would like to learn to draw, buy a print, find out some of his favorite art books, blog, email, comment and share your thoughts on art.
• Bruce is going to learn how Facebook works and interact with you more often.
• Lil is going to act like a retired person and start doing art again often.
• We plan to take long walks and observe things around us, talk about positive subjects regarding art and how we can continue to hopefully inspire others to look for the positive, rather than negative.
• We plan to watch less news on TV and paint more.
• We have several art vacations on the horizon and hope to escape often to the beach to find our muse!

Have a very Merry CHRISTmas and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Bruce and Lillianne Bowersock

Miniature Show: People's Choice Awards

People’s Choice Awards




Director Fern Christian Count the Vote

 People attending the 10th Annual National Miniature Exhibition were handed ballots when they came into the gallery to select what they felt were the best entries in this years Miniature Exhitition. There were to select works in two catagories: Most Elegant Entry and Most Creative Entry.

There were tons of worthy choices and it was hard to narrow it down to two.. But choices had to be made.


And counting the ballots was a much bigger job this year, due to the record number of people gracing our gallery with their visits.The stuffed to overflowing ballot box was finally opens and the votes tallied this week at The Renaissance Art Gallery by director, Fern Christian.



The voting was close, but choices were made.The final tally did reveal clear winners however.



Linda Rossin’s “Elegance in Motion”. The beauty of the rising flamingo captured the attention of the most guests for the Most Elegant Entry Award, while Sandi Worthington’s 1inch by 11 inch “Going To Water” won the Most Creative Entry Award.





Artwork Choosen by the Public,



Congratulations to both Sandi Worthington and Linda Rossin on their selection by the guest of The Renaissance Art Gallery for this year’s People’s Choice Awards.

End of the Show

Sad but true, this is the final week for the 10th Annual National Miniature Exhibition. It seems like we have been preparing for it forever! Then it was here, and almost before we know it, it is over.

People's Choice Ballots

We have been going over all the votes in the people’s choice box. The box has been emptied twice! This is the final week of viewing and voting, and it is kind of sad.

This has been a fabulous 6 weeks. The miniatures we have on our walls are outstanding. We have all enjoyed having them and showing them off.

Although the miniature exhibition is always a lot of work for the entire gallery, it is also about the most rewarding of our shows. Each year we welcome back old friends to our walls and become acquainted with new friends as they enter our show for the first time. Over the years we have watched as artists have matured and even taken a different directions. There are many who started entering our shows years ago. For many this was their first attempt at showing their artwork, but now we see them becoming known artists in this field, with collectors coming back year after year to see their entries.

There is always so much to say about the miniature show

The same is true with our quests at the gallery. Of course we invite back all those who have graced our gallery in the past, but it is also exciting to welcome people who have never been to The Renaissance Art Gallery. Even after nine years in the community, people come in saying “I never knew you were here!” Well, we are! And it is nice to be discovered at last! But it is also gratifying to have long time friends bring along their families to our miniature show. When people come back year after year, you know you are doing something right!


This year we had a great deal of success, thanks in no small way to the local media. They really rallied around this show, giving us the feature coverage we needed. Happily, that also meant publicity for deserving but until now less recognized local artists. That is always very satisfying. To help people discover a “new” artist.

"Sitting the Gallery is always much easier during the Miniature Show. There is so much more to talk about, and so many more visitors. As the weather gets colder and the teapot is kept warm, we all enjoy having people stop in and simply talk about art. With the miniature show there is always so much to say!


Another joy we have is watching children react at our receptions. They often don’t know what to expect, but soon overcome any shyness and get into conversations with other artists. They really show their love of art. Many even forgetting to get their cookie!

One more week and this, our 10th Annual National Miniature Exhibition will be a memory. The works will be taken down. Those works that sold sent on to their new homes, and other pieces returned to their creators along with our good wishes and thanks for lending them to us. Each and every one of them has been a joy and lightened not only the lives of the members of The Renaissance Art Gallery, but the many, many who viewed them on our walls.

It has been an active show

PS. The final totals for the People’s Choice will be announced next week!

The Tea Pot is On!

The kettle is on the boil.

Come in and visit with your favorite artist—if you don’t have a favorite artist, come in and get one!

Gallery hours are:

Friday & Saturday 12-4 pm, Sunday 1-4 pm

Studio hours Monday 10-Noon, Wednesday 1:00-7:30 pm and Saturday 10-Noon

Everyone at the Renaissance Art Gallery would love to have you visit us. With the bad weather coming, now would be an ideal time to stop in and become more familiar with the Gallery. Everyone is welcome to come in and browse or take advantage of our studio hours to work on your work art.

The Renaissance Art Gallery
900 8th Street, Suite #20
Huntington, WV 25701

Gallery (304) 525-3235
Appointments: (304) 453-3187gallerywv@yahoo.com

Open Entry Art Show

Open Entry

Hanging a Show

Each year The Renaissance Art Gallery holds three open entry art shows. Many people are not familiar with this term or concept. Because of the unique nature of The Renaissance Art Gallery’s Miniature Exhibition, the artwork is “juried” by size and media only. If it fits, it’s in.

While many shows only accept traditional miniature work we encourage a more free-range miniature. As much as we love traditional works we feel that contemporary styles can and should hang beside them.



Many show only accept traditional statuary and engraving and do not accept collage and assemblage works. We are rather fond of them. The more the merrier. And abstracts can be done in miniature!



The Renaissance Art Gallery looks for quality in the artwork we display. Most shows require artists to submit slides or digital files. With the work we encourage, that does not always work. And for artists new to showing their work, this process of jurying can be rather intimidating as well as confusing. For our open entry shows we do request that the artists either ship or come in with the actual artwork on the day(s) of submission.



For this reason, our three major shows, those we open to artists outside The Renaissance Art Gallery, are all open entry. The criteria for them are simple. The Miniature Exhibition is juried by size and media. The Spring Fine Arts show by theme, and the summer photography show, well, that one is really foot-loose and fancy free, it only has to start as a photo!



To go over what is required to participate in one of The Renaissance Art Gallery’s open entry shows.

You must be an adult artist, having reached your 18th birthday

You must live in North America

The artwork must be wholly your own, not done under the direction or in a workshop.

It must be original

No derivative works



Derivative works and works done in workshops under the direction of a teacher are not considered original works and cannot be submitted for entry in a judged show. This includes paintings done from photographs other than your own.



For collage and assemblage works, they cannot contain any copyrighted materials.

Reception for the 10th Annual National Miniature Exhibition

It was crowed—too crowded for a head count. People were standing at the door before 1:00 pm waiting to get in. these were serious art lovers!

Judy Taylor puts the finishing touches on the table





 The reception wasn’t supposed to start until 2:00 pm, giving us in theory an hour to get the coffee made, cake cut and in general make sure all our ducks were neatly in a row.

Good thing so much had been done ahead of time!

Gary Taylor and Bruce Bowersock go other infomation before reception.



Yes—most of our regulars were there, but we also had a good number of visitors who had never been to The Renaissance Art Gallery before. That is always satisfying to introduce our art to people who have had little exposure before.



Gary Greets the First guest.





We had one dignified older gentleman come in who has been doing miniature sculptures on his own for years, but has never been exposed to any other artists who also did miniatures, or to any kind of gallery and organized show before. He had read the preview in the paper and the invitation there and came into see others who work in miniature. It was a very rewarding experience for him, connecting with other local artists for the first time.



Six people attending the reception won a free art class. These will over the next few weeks will enjoy a very personal introduction to art.

Voting for the people’s choice award was strong but will continue through the end of November to allow those who did not get a chance to cast their votes to do so. It really was that crowded!