April 3, 2023

ACE Exhibition Brought Out Hundreds of Guests

More than 500 guests attended the opening reception for the Artists Council’s juried ACE Exhibition & Sale at the Artists Center at The Galen in Palm Desert. The show featured 87 diverse pieces of art that were selected for display out of 287 entries from 199 artists who are all members of the Artists Council. Alfresco refreshments, served by Lulu Catering & Events in the Faye Sarkowsky Sculpture Garden, complemented tunes by DJ Minus.

Artists Council executive director Thomas Burns welcomed attendees and shared plans for the upcoming year. Four participating artists received awards for their standout submissions: Steve Church, Jane Barron, Marcy Gregory, and Gail Stewart.

Palm Springs Intersect Art Fair 2023

As a guest curator, it was fascinating to see the impressive breadth of art representing the many facets of life in the Coachella valley. There was a broad spectrum of techniques and materials used as well as a variety of subject matter presented. Light and form, geometric shapes and landscapes are but a few ways artists expressed the visceral feelings depicted in their compelling works.

Three examples of compelling interpretations of "Across The Valley" are: Marcy Gregory's 'Nocturne Sonata', a striking sculptural piece reminiscent of both Louise Nevelson and Noah Puriofy's detritus assemblages.Chase Langford's geographic expressionist 'Indian Wells', a surprising and colorful portrait of the desert landscape.Lisa Loudin's gestalt drawing of a pen & ink palm tree incorporated in "The Journey Here', tells a beautiful visual story of our desert terrain.

— Frederick Fulmer

April, 26, 2017

Marcy Gregory – Looking at the Discard to Divine

By Angela Romeo

Hard Edge is a term coined by the art critic Jules Langster to describe work that is characterized by simplified, geometric forms drawn with precise contours and broad strokes of monochromatic color. A path of sharp crisp lines is rarely the path to becoming an artist. Case in point  – artist Marcy Gregory.

With a background in art history, urban planning and nutrition this New Jersey transplant has wound her way to a unique niche in the art world.  Working from her Palm Desert studio Marcy uses scrap wood and recycled cardboard to create multi-dimensional work.  She is also a “realist portraitist” as Marcy calls her style. But the road to this work began with a passion for art, chance meeting and an imagination that saw beauty where others some waste.

“It is hard for me to define what inspired me to be an artist,” said Marcy. “I always took art classes. My degree from Boston University is in Art History. But I did not see myself as an artist. It was a class at the Palm Spring Art Museum taught by Florence Treatman that started the transition.  Florence was influenced by Louise Nevelson and her use of wood. Florence in turn inspired me.”

Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? cited Nevelson as a major influence on the new generation of feminist artists. Nevelson also influenced installation art of the late 1960s and 1970s. To Nevelson each element of the installation, no matter how humble the material, was an integral part of the holistic installation and was just as important as an individual object. For Nevelson the wood that she gathered on the New York City streets, at first to burn to keep her and her son, sculptor Mike Nevelson warm, became the medium that would spark Nevelson’s creativity and fame.

“My family and I used to go to Idyllwild to the Family Art Camp.  There I was gifted a refrigerator box of wood, odds and ends. Like Nevelson, these scraps became my narrative. My work evolves and is inspired by the shape of the wood. As the refrigerator box nears empty, I find my work becoming more deliberate. The origins of my work start within that box. However crude or unrefined the wood maybe, it is the basis for the art I create.”

Marcy’s sculpture work varies from what she refers to as “more intimate association with the sculpture” size to 4 foot by 5 foot wall pieces. The works, often incorporating word, cardboard and Styrofoam, transform these commonplace throwaways into complex studies. “I enjoy watching people engage with my work. I know each piece intimately. I create it. I live with it. I watch it evolve. I am always connected to the piece but I realize to that there is time to let it go. I know I can never recreate a particular work, but I can continue creating.”

George O’Keefe once said,” Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant…Making your unknown known is the important thing.” It is that desire to create, for the appreciation, for the feedback, for the self-satisfaction that makes Marcy’s work intriguing and compelling.

 Marcy’s work is currently part of the California Dreaming exhibit at the Izen Miller Gallery.  For more information visit www.izenmillergallery.com.

An excerpt posted in the Oregon Coast Today Art of the state - Artsy 8/2/2017

“Palm Desert-based artist Marcy Gregory has enjoyed finding things to make sculptures for 25 years. In fact, her assemblage art can leave you with a desire to see what she will come up with next from her stockpile of wood pieces, cardboard and Styrofoam. She notes that her pieces typically begin with a scrap in her studio that catches her eye, but that her pieces “take form over a few months until a pleasing composition emerges, which is lyrical and that encourages the eye to roam over the piece in its entirety.” She then lives with the piece for a few weeks to determine that it is truly finished.”