Blue Moon Gallery welcomes ceramic artist

GRAYSLAKE – The Blue Moon Gallery welcomes ceramic artist June Ambro as its featured artist this month.

Ambro creates beautiful objects through wood-fired clay. She is from southeastern Wisconsin and has been a watercolor painter for 25 years. She taught watercolor painting for eight years. Her painting background has influenced her work with clay and she often employs painterly methods into the making of her ceramic pieces.

“I am a maker. From my earliest memories to the present, I have practiced the art of making things: two-dimensional, three-dimensional, functional pieces and sculptural objects,” Ambro said in a news release. “Of late, I have dialed into clay as my main medium. The genius of clay is that I get to make a base form (touching and shaping) then create richly layered surfaces employing brush work, drawing, scratching, carving, slips, terra sigillata and glazes. My attention to surface quality allows me to imbue my work with a sense of time and emotion.

“Pottery is the most intimate of all art. You cradle it in your hands and touch it with your lips. My hope is to interact with my user/viewer on a visceral level.”

A wide range of pieces are in Ambro’s Blue Moon exhibition, including bowls, storage jars, cups, mugs, tumblers, planters and trays.

Patrons can meet Ambro and view her ceramic art at an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. May 27 at the gallery, 18620 Belvidere Road in Grayslake. The event is free and open to the public.

Also on view in the gallery are black-and-white handpulled linocut prints by Racine, Wisconsin, printmaker Samira Gdisis from her “Petals & Wings” series, as well as abstract acrylic paintings and sculptures by Waukegan artist William Weidner in a show that references “relationships.”

The gallery’s 2023 collective artists – Kathleen Heitmann, John Kirkpatrick Juli Janovicz, Michael Litewski and Kendra Kett – will be showing new works, including paintings, drawings and assemblages. These five artists show year-round at the gallery and present evolving collections of works in impressionism, abstract expressionism and modern/contemporary genres.

The gallery will be open to the public from 1 to 4 p.m. May 28. The gallery also ships artwork to buyers nationwide.

For information, contact Kendra Kett, the director at Blue Moon Gallery, at 224-388-7948 or visit www.thebluemoongallery.com