The Unintended Curator

01/13/2025

It has been quite a while since I posted on The Unintended Curator page. This has to do with life and the choices we all face eventually. Opening a brick-and-mortar gallery had been a dream since grad-school. Jen and I bought the property back in December 1997. We moved within the following months, dividing the space into a small storefront backed by a studio space for painting. Flying on minimal cash fuel of a teacher’s income, we rented the front to a hair salon; a relationship that lasted over 20 years.

When the hair salon moved on the eve of the pandemic, with my retirement from teaching in the wind, we began to think that the moment of opening a gallery was possible. Every small town needs a creative space as a linchpin in its connection to the wider culture. It took three years of planning and construction to create the space we envisioned. We opened in October 2022, fully realizing that the winter months in Culver, Indiana would be slow.

As fate would have it, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, my 94-year-old father began a series of falls leading to an inability to manage the lighting business he had run since 1948. In February 2023, the family members in Pittsburgh requested I come in and manage his business affairs. This, as you might imagine, was not at all what I planned or even saw as a possibility. Family, though, is family. Dad moved into long-term memory care as we headed for Pittsburgh with my siblings agreeing I could close the business in 6 months. This, I imagined, would allow me to get back to what I saw as my true retirement gig.

However, arriving in Pittsburgh in March 2024, I realized the employees working for my father were in no way prepared for the business closing. One had been with him for close to 50 years, with the others having no less than 25 years of service. Closing, for them, would be an unfair burden. After completing a cursory inventory and managing any unfinished projects, it became clear the only just effort would be to work the business until it was healthy enough to attract a buyer, thereby ensuring the fiscal health of the employees. Realizing this might take a year, we rented out our gallery in Culver and dug in for the long haul.

Within the ensuing months, we saw good news and unwelcome news. The good news involved the business in Pittsburgh attracting a viable buyer. The new owner took over in January 2024. The unwelcome news? The new LLC was not prepared to purchase the inventory or the building which included 34,000 square feet of miscellaneous chandeliers, lighting fixtures, parts, architectural pieces, and random furniture. Back in Culver, the unwelcome news persisted; the group renting the gallery did not realize strong enough sales to keep their presence in Culver viable. The gallery closed in January 2024.

Fast forward to January 2025. We have been living in Pittsburgh for just shy of two years. My father passed away in September. We are now in estate mode. With half of the Pittsburgh inventory sold and the building on the market, there is light at the end of the tunnel. As with all things human in uncertain times, we are contemplating the future. Hear is what we know for sure, we will be in Culver and the gallery will be open for the summer of 2025. This, however, will be a last hurrah for our time in Culver.

Having experienced the cultural life of Pittsburgh, not to mention being centrally located to our grandchildren, we have decided to complete our 30 years in Culver and move to Pittsburgh. How and when this will occur is in the hands of Providence. In the meantime, if you happen to visit Culver during the summer of 2025, please stop by the gallery.

12/02/2022

19 years ago today the CCC opened its doors. Today, I told Crystal and the gals that we should toast.

As I pull out the w**e, one of our first customers ever walked in, who graciously helped us with artwork and support all these years (and four kiddos of his have worked for ccc!) Then staple Ray walks in, another first whose books we have sold over the years. Then walks in our regular Brian, who used to calm my colicky Brady for 6 months while I tried to work with with at the CCC with a baby in tow.

Then 12 year manager Crystal (whose son now works here too), returner Megan, and my staple former athlete Gen (whose two sisters also have worked at ccc) toasted with all of them and reminisced about the past 19 years.

Things aren’t always easy, aren’t always hard, have had great years and hard years, but some things stay the same-CCC family.

Thank you fo each and everyone of you customers and CCC family who have helped us make it this long.

12/02/2022

Though the snows of November have temporarily vanished, there is still plenty of winter wonder in the gallery at The Unintended Curator. Please stop by during the Culver Holiday Hop this weekend and take a moment to enjoy any number of seasonally inspired artworks. Not to be missed is the gem of an oil painting by an unidentified American artist that records an early snow on a road leading, it is thought, to a Southern Indiana town sometime in the middle of the last century. Wonderfully composed and most likely painted on site, the work passed through several hands before ending up in a collection in Roann, Indiana, from which it came to The Unintended Curator. Given the over one-hundred-year Hoosier tradition of plein air painting, this small canvas panel may have been a sketch for a larger studio piece. At some point, further study may reveal the artist’s name but, frankly, the pleasure is in the viewing, and in Culver, Indiana, the pleasure is yours. Hope to see you in the gallery.

12/01/2022

https://theunintendedcurator.com/2022/12/01/polyptych-of-kittens/

Several weeks ago, I placed a work of art on The Unintended Curator gallery walls that can be best described as enigmatic. I describe this as a single work, though it is comprised of many parts, al…

11/26/2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwvTF2bXWQY&feature=youtu.be

“ARTS AND ARTISANS” MINI-DOCUMENTARY SERIES PREMIEREArts and Artisans, a series of mini-documentaries produced by Wild Rose Moon with support from Marshall C...

11/12/2022

Artists are an inquisitive lot. They find interest in the most simple and unassuming places. Finished works of art reveal this in part, but more so do the many sketches and scribblings tossed to the side when the final work is complete. There is something special in the moment an artist stops to initially record an idea concerning a subject that manages to pique their interest. My long-suffering wife refers to this artistic proclivity to change direction as “squirrel syndrome.” I prefer to see it as evidence of an inquisitive life.

I’m reminded of this when I take time to walk with an old unsigned oil sketch done in the late 19th or early 20th century. Lightly brushed and limited in palette, the painting records a flock of sheep eating their way through an open pasture along a country lane. They are full and thick with wool, most walking away from whoever stopped to sketch them. Only a few, in fact, look at the artist. One, an obvious leader standing toward the bottom left, has an air of responsibility. Another, a small lamb toward the upper right, perks its head inquisitively, looking directly at the artist and, consequently, us. The composition rolls sweetly along with a gathering of tall skinny trees on the upper right and a rounded hill, faded a distant blue, high on the left.

It would be wonderful to have an inkling of how the artist regarded this piece. Small enough to carry under an arm, it was most likely done on site. Unfortunately, as with many sketches, the connection to whomever seized the moment to paint is lost. Possibly, the artist intended to continue working on it but, for some reason, thought better. It was preserved by someone, though when it was initially picked up at a Pennsylvania estate sale it had many decades of dust and no frame. Now professionally cleaned and presented, the sketch reveals more of the use of line and color the artist saw. Offered at The Unintended Curator for a modest price, it is an artwork that will continue to reward those interested in welcoming a sense of wonder into their world.

11/04/2022

Currently on view at The Unintended Curator is a 1936 painting by the little-known Belgium painter George Henrotte. This oil on canvas depicts a stone bridge over a river or stream. Loosely painted in an expressionist manner, but still hewing to the fidelity of form, the stone bridge is dappled with sunlight, glowing sandy pink in the highlights while cooling down to a plum violet in the shadows. Henrotte gives us a moment in the day, possibly late afternoon, when the light of the sun rakes through the trees to warm up what ever open space it can find. The pasture, just visible through the arch on the right, glows in the sunlight to a bright yellow chartreuse that is echoed in the sunlit leaves in the trees on the left. Compositionally, the arch forms a half circle with the upper quarter comprising the pasture, seen through the arch, and the lower quarter the reflection of the arch in the stream. The water, being unable to be touched by the sun, cools the composition in a deep earthy green, while the embankment moves diagonally to the left, revealing a grass field guarded by a half-hearted fence.

Saying that little is known about George Henrotte is not an indication of his work being diminished in any way. It just adds to our wonder. Some even say he may have moved to America, though this painting came from a collector in Germany. Those who judge art because of its monetary or celebrity value are poorer for this lapse in judgement. Those who train their eye to see, will recognize the inherent aesthetic worth of paintings like George Henrotte’s Stone Bridge, and be richer for the experience. Our intention is to have Stone Bridge on display through the end of November when a new exhibition will rotate into the gallery. However, since the artworks on display at The Unintended Curator are sold “off the wall,” we cannot guarantee its presence, should you wish to stop by for a visit. It is here now, though, with many other wonderful pieces to show. So please consider working an art break into your day. We are open Friday 1-5pm or Saturday 10:00am-4:00pm, November and December.

10/19/2022

I'm happy to say that it was great to soft open on the weekend of the Culver Paint-Out with artists Steve Puttrich and Alan Larkin, our judges for the weekend events, and both exceptional people. We formally opened on October 7th during Culver's Fallfest Weekend. We are a buy-it-off-the-wall type gallery and will be rotating work every six weeks or so. Given the doldrums of the winter hours, we will open Friday and Saturday most weekends, noon to 4:00pm. We will also open by appointment by contacting me through email or Facebook.
Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out www.theunintendedcurator.com for past and current blog posts.