The word Ruminate in dark green letters over a field of light green hoovers above three images lined up horizontally underneath the title. An abstract pulp painting that is primarily pink and yellow by Lea Basile-Lazarus, an abstract pulp painting that looks like a map created from dots of blue, pink and yellow by Chad Hayward, & a pulp painting of cotton in bloom by Andrea Peterson

May 6 - August 6, 2021

Ruminate features pulp paintings by Lea Basile-Lazarus, Chad Hayward, and Andrea Peterson. Three artists experiencing and ruminating on their surroundings, utilizing pigmented paper pulp as medium. This thought-provoking exhibit invites viewers to explore the idea of situation, region, and circumstance through the distinct lenses of each artist. This grouping of works cover a unique range of impassioned and tangible conditions of place. All of the works utilize pigmented paper pulp to create imagery. A variety of pulped plant fibers create the works, including cotton rag, flax, abaca, phragmites, and millet straw. Each artist approaches the medium with their own way of working, allowing the viewer to see a wide range of mark-making with the unique material of paper pulp.

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Purple Title Wall at the entrance of the gallery. The wall says Ruminate in white vinyl letters with the artists' names in yellow underneath. Below the title and artists names are one work by each artist. Lea Basile-Lazarus has a dipytch of two line drawn houses on a white background. Chad Haywards work is an oval of paper with a white dot at its center. the white dot rests on a larger red dot and the red dot floats in a sea of small dots organized via gradation from white to red all of this is circled by blue and white dots on a green base sheet. Andrea Peterson shows an abstract pulp painting with a large patch of yellow in the upper left corner, a bright turquoise shooting out diagonally from the yellow and large swirls of white, green, and pink.

Purple Title Wall at the entrance of the gallery. The wall says Ruminate in white vinyl letters with the artists' names in yellow underneath. Below the title and artists names are one work by each artist. Lea Basile-Lazarus has a dipytch of two line drawn houses on a white background. Chad Haywards work is an oval of paper with a white dot at its center. the white dot rests on a larger red dot and the red dot floats in a sea of small dots organized via gradation from white to red all of this is circled by blue and white dots on a green base sheet. Andrea Peterson shows an abstract pulp painting with a large patch of yellow in the upper left corner, a bright turquoise shooting out diagonally from the yellow and large swirls of white, green, and pink.

Shot of the view from the gallery entrance. Looking across the space to see accordion books in cases inset into the wall and to the right of the cases an entrance to a smaller gallery with a pulp painting of the trunks of trees installed on a purple gallery wall.

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View of the wall to the left of the door as you enter. This intro wall has a board with the headshot of each of the artists along with their artists statements. To the right of the intro board are three works of art, one pulp painting per an artist. Pulp painting to be described in the next image.

From left to right, the intro wall features the works: Transparency by Lea Basile-Lazarus, Extending Through Leaves by Andrea Peterson, and East by Chad Hayward. Transparency is an extremely layered work of pulp painting with various transparent layers of simplified house shapes. The palette is muted shades of dusty rose, white, olive green and a grey-blue. Extending Through Leaves is an abstract composition with to horizontal ovals featured prominently at the center and upper center of the composition. The dark purple ovals are ringed in yellow and surrounded by a deep crimson. The upper left corner is covered in white squiggles and the lower third of the composition is a dark half circle surrounded by bright turquoise rimmed in hot pink. East features a series of dots arranged in radial patterns that overlap on another. The entire piece is a series off blues and greens with a few accents of yellow.

The west wall of the large gallery features a peach colored diptych by Lea Basile-Lazarus titled, The Unusuals. The peach foundation of the work has line drawings in sky blue of houses with small accents of hot pink and lime green. At the center of the wall a triptych titled Invisible Lines by Andrea Peterson renders a field full of flowering stalks in a loose sketchy style. The primary palette is dark green, sky blue, golden yellow with a maroon sky. To the right of Invisible Lines are two more pieces by Andrea Peterson. They are placed closer to one another due to their shared palette. The pieces From Under and Sun Rising include white, turquoise, dark red, black and a brassy yellow swirling around.

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The accent corner of the gallery is painted purple and features three framed pieces by Chad Hayward. On the left wall of the corner, Cell, a yellow irregularly shaped paper is mounted to float in white frame. The yellow paper is dotted with lavender, purple and yellow paint. To the right side of the piece there is a purple circle dotted with green, lavender, and orange that looks like the nucleus of a cell. Mounted just bellow the Cell artwork is a small Untitled square piece. It is a blue sheet with horizontal stripes created from repeated dots . There is a stripe of yellow, a stripe of dark purple, white, and another stripe of yellow. On top of the stripes sit five large circles, one that is turquoise rimmed in yellow, another is red rimmed in pink and then rimmed in red again, the third is white with mottled bits of red and blue in its interior, the fourth is turquoise with a yellow donut in the center and the last is a mottled turquoise and purple circle. On the right wall of the corner is a piece titled Oligodendrocyte. It is primarily shades of blue and green with pink and white accents. The over all impression is that of looking at a map.

Photo looking across the large gallery to the purple accent corner and adjacent inset wall cases.

Glassed-in wall case that features artist books by Lea Basile-Lazarus and Andrea Peterson. Lea's three books are house-shaped, free standing accordion pulp painting mounted on boards. Andrea's books combine printmaking, drawing, and pulp painting. The piece titled Before We Were Born: Nest is an egg shaped accordion that sits in a paper nest rested atop a glass branch. The piece titled Before We Were Born: Sea to Land is an abaca pamphlet shaped in a half circle which sits in a ceramic clamshell.

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Looking across the large gallery at the east wall there is a case with a large book in the center of the floor. The east wall is the longest wall in the gallery. From left to right the following 2 pieces by Lea Basile-Lazarus appear, a triptych by Andrea Peterson sits at the center of the wall and the right side of the wall showcases two pieces by Chad Hayward. Who are they by Lea Basile-Lazarus shows white child-like houses on a background of red, yellow, and blue. The Strong and the Stable continues the house motif with a maroon line drawing of two houses on a white and yellow background. Emerge by Andrea Peterson is a rendering of a cotton field in bloom. Signal by Chad Hayward is an abstract shape of blue that hugs the left and top edge of the composition while a brown form pierces the blue shape diagonally from the bottom right corner up towards the top left corner.

Close up of Union, an artist book by Andrea Peterson. The page on display has white paste painted stripes across the page spread and a white tree painted on top of the lines. Details of the tree are accented with graphite.

View of the east wall of the small gallery. All the pieces on this wall are created by Chad Hayward. From right to left, the order in which you would encounter the pieces upon entering the gallery: Gateway is a primarily blue piece with concentric circles radiating from a red dot at the center of the page. The concentric circles are created by a line of smaller circles. Papillon is a rectangular green piece with two yellow dots stacked one above the other at the center of the piece and two dark green dots arranged horizontally. These two sets of dots organized in cardinal directions sits atop a field of small white and yellow dots arranged radially in concentric circles. A rectangle of red dots runs along the outer edge of the piece. Element 115 is another series of radial dots on a rectangular sheet the colors lean more towards purple, yellow and white. The final piece, titled Rock Salt features the repetitive dot pattern like the other pieces but is shaped more organically. This piece features a blue form on top of a green background with the entire thing being coated in a light layer of white fibers.

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The east wall connects with the south wall which is the accent wall that can be seen even from the entrance to the larger gallery. The entire south wall is covered by a triptych of tree trunks titled Dissolved Time by Andrea Peterson. The piece features large scale white tree trunks overtop of a sunset of yellows and reds that ends at a horizon line of purple earth.

The west wall of the small gallery features two portraits of tree trunks flanking an abstract piece that are all created by Andrea Peterson. Beech #4 and Beech #2 both combine pulp painting with block prints overtop. Regeneration, the abstract piece has yellow and green shapes that eco the forms of the lower trunk seen in the surrounding work but instead of traveling upwards into a trunk form the upper part of the composition is a swirl of blue, white and yellow.

The small gallery has an alcove. Romping Around, a triptych by Lea Basile-Lazarus, occupies the alcove. This piece revisits the house icon. This time the houses are rendered in yellow, white, and blue against a very textured background.

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