The community is invited to view recent works featuring artists Cheryl Stidwell Parker and Sally Everhardus at the UU Gallery in north Ephraim during the month of October. A reception will be held Sunday, October 12th from noon to 2 pm. The reception will feature the guitar music of Stephen Lavell as well as the opportunity to talk to the artists about their work.
The two artists are friends and artistic colleagues who meet regularly to share and comment on each other’s works in progress. To keep their drawing skills intact, they formed an occasional co-op during which participants both model and draw in their medium of choice. They have painted plein air together and independently and share deep rooted artistic curiosities.
Everhardus originally came to the County as Director of the Peninsula Art School in Fish Creek. An avid artist since pre-kindergarten, she originally wanted to illustrate children’s books or be an architect. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan in Design, minoring in Art and Architectural History.
Many of the eclectic mix of pieces in this exhibit reflect her background in graphics, love of pattern and working in series to explore ideas to their fullest. Although serious about her work, many pieces include flashes of humor and comments on the absurd.
Stidwell Parker studied art education at the University of Northern Iowa and received an MA in in Art and Design with an emphasis on museum education research from Iowa State University. She moved to Door County as Executive Director of the former Fairfield Museum and eventually settled in Bailey’s Harbor with her husband, Stephen Lavell. Together they established Chez Cheryl Art Space, home to the annual Door Prize for Portraiture.
Stidwell Parker’s series of paintings document the pursuit of improvisation that merges collage, mark-making, expression, and metaphor in a painterly format. Finding inspiration in simple daily scenarios, she seeks stimulation from a variety of other artists including Paul Klee, Alice Neel, David Hockney, April Gornik, Larry Rivers, Pierre Bonnard and Robert Rauschenberg.
