Holsome Gallery

The owners of Princeton’s tea shop wed art with soothing herbal brews and a holistic center.

By: Ilene Dube

TIMEOFF PHOTO/MARK CZAJKOWSKI

‘Skyscrapers in the Clouds’ by Joseph Petrovics at the Witherspoon Gallery at Holsome Teas & Herbs.

   On a rainy day in late December, the stress of holiday shoppers was sending negative energy through the air on Princeton’s Witherspoon Street. Opening the door to Holsome Teas & Herbs, a calm descended. In the Zen-like spare space, surrounded by minimalist artwork, owner Paul Shu offered a steaming cup of green tea.
   Gentle music played in the background, and a faint smell of burning wood added to the serenity. Hard to believe that a few years ago, as Urken Hardware, this place was filled to the brim with wallpaper paste, spackling compound, and hammers and nails.
   Ever since they opened a tea and herb shop on Nassau Street eight years ago, Paul and Wei-Ming Shu have offered a peaceful retreat. Beyond teas and herbs, the Shus offered programs in Chinese medicine, healing and massage. But the couple had a greater dream, and about two years ago moved into the former hardware store. With help from architect M.J. Sagan, Holsome opened a yoga studio, and in December inaugurated its Witherspoon Gallery. (The shop had housed a temporary gallery before opening this one.)

TIMEOFF PHOTO/MARK CZAJKOWSKI

Gallery owners Paul and Wei-Ming Shu and director Ann Ridings.

   Ann Ridings, an artist who specializes in Chinese brush paintings, came on board as the gallery’s director. Mr. and Ms. Shu had attended her 10-year retrospective, Peripheral Spaces, at the Silva Gallery of Art at the Pennington School in October, and knew she had the right sensibility to manage the gallery they sought to create.
   "Paul was one of the last to come to the show, and it was fun for me to walk around with someone from an Eastern culture. He realized we had the same aesthetic sense," recounts Ms. Ridings, an Old Greenwich, Conn., native who has lived in Princeton since the early ’90s.
   Many of Princeton Borough’s shops are shaped like bowling alleys, but the Shus and Ms. Sagan have used this shape to advantage. The long railroad car has been broken up into a series of rooms, and looking through the space is like seeing a stage opening behind another stage, and another stage opening beyond that. The blond bamboo floor adds to the clean, spare feeling.
   "The Chinese have a special love for bamboo," says Mr. Shu, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry and worked in the pharmaceutical industry before opening the tea shop.

TIMEOFF PHOTO/MARK CZAJKOWSKI

Josep Petrovics’ towering sculpture leads visitors to the gallery.

   Behind the bamboo floor, in the multi-purpose room used for both the gallery and the yoga and tai chi studio, the floor becomes soft cork. It is so gentle a visitor feels compelled to remove her shoes, although it isn’t required.
   Mr. Shu says the gallery has brought him closer to his ideals. "Art is a natural healing," he says. "Art not only pleases the eyes but pleases the mind and allows it to be set free. It is compatible with the nutritional and harmonious way to heal the body. I love art, and in the store it’s ecologically balanced."
   "Paul says people come in to feel the space, the tranquility," says Ms. Ridings, who majored in social work at Syracuse University in the 1970s, then worked in advertising in New York. "There was so much social work to do in advertising," she says, only half joking. After having five sons, she studied Chinese brush painting at the Yard School of Art in Montclair and has developed her own technique of weaving paintings.
   "I decided to get involved (in the gallery) because I believe in the importance of each person bringing creativity into his or her life," Ms. Ridings says. "Without the creative process, we do not live fully. Without expression that wells from sheer abandon, we are not true to ourselves, and without the courage to release our originality, we stand numb and stifled."

Paul Muldoon drawn by Howard Siskowitz.

   She plans to have four major invitational shows a year, as well as smaller shows in between. "What excites me is the windows," she says. "I want to ask creative people, not necessarily artists, to take the windows for a month so people in the community can take it in when they walk by. Everyone has that longing to do something creative, and I want to put it in their face."
   The first show features sculpture by Joseph Petrovics and photographs by Madelaine Shellaby and runs through Jan. 24.
   Mr. Petrovics, a Blawenburg resident who is an instructor and assistant to the director at the Newington Cropsey Foundation Academy of Art, Hasting-on-Hudson, N.Y., works in wood, stone and bronze and is creating a 56-foot horizontal raised relief in bronze for the Twin Tower Memorial.
   Born in Hungary, he came to the United States in 1988 and lived on Ettl’s farm in Princeton when it was an artist’s colony. While commuting to New York, "I was impressed by the skyscrapers in the distance, endless columns growing bigger and bigger as I approached the city," he writes. "One day I saw dark, heavy clouds weighing down on these skyscrapers. Their tops poked through the clouds like knives — I could almost feel the pressure on my skin.

Paul Muldoon photographed by Peter C. Cook.

   "This experience was both frightening and gorgeous at the same time," he continues. "In this duality I found the very essence of what New York City means to me. This was my inspiration for ‘Skyscrapers in the Clouds’ and ‘Urban Clouds.’" Works in his "Fugitive Show Series" were inspired by a visit to a refugee camp for war victims in the former Yugoslavia.
   "Skyscrapers represent much more than just New York City," says Mr. Petrovics. "They are one of our era’s greatest structures, just like the pyramids were in ancient times. Overall, my skyscrapers are never realistic looking. They are more symbolic, abstract elements."
   Ms. Shellaby, who teaches at Stuart Country Day School in Princeton, scans photographic negatives into her computer where she adjusts and composes the image, blurring or sharpening it or making collage. "I use traditional photography in combination with digital technology to both produce the imagery and to output it, with new methods that have joined the historical mainstream of fine art printmaking," she writes. "My prints begin as photographs, but are composed on the computer and adjusted extensively."
   The next show at the gallery, opening Feb. 4, is Princeton in Your Face: Portraits from Doubletake. Princeton artist Howard Siskowitz and Bucks County photographer Peter C. Cook, a Titusville native, have been collaborating on the portrait project for several years, and a selection of the work, focusing on faces in Princeton, will comprise the show.
   The two men met at McCarter Theatre in Princeton 30 years ago, where they worked as stage hands and set builders. "We worked in theater all these years and our paths crossed on similar projects," says Mr. Siskowitz. "Photography was always Peter’s first love, and being an artist was my first love, but we stayed in touch. We were lucky to find our livelihood in an ancillary art form.
   "Because of our association with theater, Pete’s focus was portraits and I would draw in the wings. We often worked with the Princeton Ballet Company," continues Mr. Siskowitz, who paints full-time these days. "Through the years we realized we were both doing the same picture, he with a camera and I with a pencil and brush."
   The partners found studio space and invited friends and acquaintances to pose. So far they have created between 30 and 40 portraits each, including such subjects as Princeton notables Paul Muldoon, Milton Babbitt, Peter and Barbara Westergaard, Leo Aarons, Herb Tuchman, Stephen Wadsworth and others. Both the pencil portraits and the photographs are in black and white because "it’s very telling and beautiful at the same time," says Mr. Siskowitz. "In the glare of a photographer’s light, our job is to capture something of the person in an unguarded moment."
   In the moment captured, Mr. Siskowitz’s style is somewhat reminiscent of Al Hirshfeld, whose caricatures of opening nights graced the pages of The New York Times for almost 80 years. Mr. Cook has photographed the likes of Richard Preston for The New Yorker and architectural interiors for various magazines and books, including Great Houses and Gardens of New Jersey (Rutgers University Press) by Caroline Seebohm. The partners hope to turn their portrait into a book someday.
   "We call it ‘Doubletake’ because it’s two images of the same person," says Mr. Cook. "It’s two aspects of their character, two interpretations of character."
   "All these (wonderful artists) are coming out of the woodwork," says Ms. Ridings. "It’s like Writers Block — if you build it they will come. Our community needs something like Writers Block, it’s sad that it’s gone. I love the idea of creativity just springing up and everyone wants to collaborate."
   "This location (on Witherspoon Street) is the best in town," says Mr. Petrovics. "People see it on a daily basis."
   "I don’t want to get hooked into one kind of art," Ms. Ridings continues. "Holsome has a certain aesthetic, an Eastern eye, a flavor of simplicity, chi and flaw."
   She says there is no word in English for chi. "It’s your essence, your spirit, an energy. When you look at a piece of art, you may get no feeling, or it just may stop your breathing. That’s chi. If I can have one piece affect people like that, that’s fine with me."
The Witherspoon Gallery at Holsome, 27 Witherspoon St., Princeton, is open Wed.-Sun. 1-5 p.m. Joseph Petrovics’ sculpture and Madelaine Shellaby’s photographs are on view through Jan. 24. Princeton in Your Face: Portraits from ‘Doubletake’ opens Feb. 4 with a reception 6-8 p.m. For information, call (609) 279-1592. Doubletake on the Web: www.peterccookphotography.com