Moms’ art featured at the Gourgaud

Exibit takes a maternal point of view

By: Lacey Korevec
   Three mothers.
   Three perspectives.
   One exhibition.
   Amy Amico and Colleen Cahill, both of Cranbury, and Jennifer CaDoff, of Princeton, are all mothers with two factors that brought them together: They all have children at Princeton High School and they all are visual artists.
   The Gourgaud Gallery will be hosting their works in an exhibit titled, "Three Stories With a View," which will open with a First Friday reception on Oct. 6 at 8 p.m. The exhibit will run until Oct. 29.
   "We’re three moms who happen to be artists and Colleen actually got the three of us together because we aren’t active, working artists anymore," Ms. Amico said. "We thought that by joining together, we could put together a great show."
   Inspired by their families’ pasts, Ms. Amico and Ms. Cahill created pieces that reflect life during simpler times, while Ms. Cadoff’s works focus on black cats and picket fences viewed from unusual perspectives. Most of the works will include short stories explaining how the works came about.
   "We’re actually telling a little story," Ms. Cahill said. "I think that’s interesting for viewers who come into the gallery, to not just look at a two-dimensional picture, but to also see the story that went along with making that story."
   Different media will be presented in the exhibit, which will hold between seven and nine pieces from each artist, including watercolor, pastel, painted photographs, acrylic and pen and ink, Ms. Cahill said.
   While the others used their art to recreate the past, Ms. Cadoff said, she used hers to re-examine the present through black cats and picket fences.
   "My work is more about the immediate environments of my every day life," she said.
   The cats and fences in her pictures are abstract shapes that are surrounded by negative space.
   "There’s something incredibly familiar that I try to make people think about," she said. Ms. Cahill said she hopes the exhibit will inspire viewers to delve a little deeper in researching their own families’ past.
   "I would hope that they might become a little bit more interested in their own retrospective and their own lives, where they came from and how hard it was to get where they are," she said.
   Two of her pieces, a painted photo and a pastel, reflect her grandfather’s grocery store, which she said she chose as one of her focuses after losing her grandparents this year.
   "They both have a real 1950s kind of feel to them," she said. "It was back in the day, before the Wal-Marts, when you had little, tiny, single-owned stores. It was a different age."
   For her works, Ms. Amico researched Eastern Pennsylvania, and Wales, England, two areas where her family grew up. She said the process, which included a study of archival photos, propelled her back into a life of painting that she had somewhat put aside to raise her family.
   "It was an interesting way for me to get back into art," she said. "I tried sitting there and painting still lifes of some fruit in a bowl and it just wasn’t working for me."
   Since all three of the women’s works inspire familiar, nostalgic feelings, but also revolve significantly around the artists’ personal perspectives, they tie together to create a comprehensive exhibit, Ms. Cadoff said.
   "The interesting thing to me is that each of our work is so different, but the thing that connects it is that it’s so intensely personal," she said. "We are not doing any kind of theoretical art. It all comes from inside of us, our lives, what we care about, what we look at and how we feel about the world around us."
   The women also parallel one another artistically because they are mothers, Ms. Cadoff said.
   "I think that being mothers is an important part of how we came to our artistic viewpoint in the way we did," she said. "They, Colleen and Amy, are very much looking at their families, the past and the history of their families, which is certainly something you think about when you’re a parent. And for me, just looking at the every day world is just something that came to me as a parent."
   A cappella groups from Princeton High School, The Cat’s Meow and the Testostertones, will perform at the exhibit’s reception, which is open to the public and free of charge.
   "It’s just a great community event that everyone is welcome to participate in," Ms. Amico said. "It’s a great way to meet new people in town and, if you’re someone who is thinking about getting back into art, it’s a great way to get to know some of the local artists."