Artists Guild to feature ‘Thin Places’ next month
SARANAC LAKE — “Thin Places” by Suzanne Langelier-Lebeda will be the November featured exhibit at the Adirondack Artists Guild Gallery.
“Thin Places” refers to beliefs by early Celtic and other Indigenous civilizations that the landscape, its mountains and rivers, are sacred, spiritual places.
This is a very personal show for Suzanne, inspired by memories of her dad driving her 11-year-old self and little sister, 7, to see her mother at the Ray Brook Tuberculosis Hospital week after week for months on end until her mom was cured and could come home. That hour of travel from Norwood to Ray Brook in those formative years shaped her love of the Adirondacks as she watched the mists unveil the mountains from the car window.
Those road trips opened her awareness of “Thin Places,” later reinforced by the words of John O’Donohue, the late Irish poet, who described them as thresholds: “… spaces where time and eternity embrace.” These are places where one experiences emotions and an awareness of that mist, lifting and revealing a timelessness where we become part of something greater than ourselves.
Suzanne writes, “I experience this ‘Thin Place’ in the mountains when the ever-changing atmosphere darkens, threatening a storm. It brings me back to that melancholic time and my mother’s words. There is nothing so lonesome as a thunderstorm echoing through the mountains, where she, missing her family, echoed a deep emptiness within.
“My semi-abstract watercolors reflect my ‘Thin Place,’ not only the nostalgia but also the most profound gratitude for the crisp air, the beauty and ruggedness of nature in these mountains, and the ‘healing woods’ that cured my mother and brought her home.”
This exhibit is dedicated to her mother, Eva Langelier.
“Thin Places” will open on Friday, Nov. 1 with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. and will run through Dec. 3.
The Adirondack Artists Guild is a cooperative retail art gallery representing a diverse group of artists residing and working in the Tri-Lakes region. The gallery is located at 52 Main St, Saranac Lake. For more information, call 518 891-2615 or visit www.adirondackartistsguild.com. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays.