Edward Bernard Gallery aims to break through with its First Friday debut

One of the newest additions to the Cape Girardeau art community doesn't specialize in paintings, prints or ceramics.

What it does specialize in is something other galleries don't offer -- a large assortment of more than 250 handmade glass sculptures and objects made by artists from around the United States.

The Edward Bernard Gallery opened in late August, and is preparing to enter the First Friday playing field in Cape Girardeau tonight, with an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m.

This Friday the gallery will have a lot of competition, with gallery openings occurring at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri galleries, the Juden Schoolhouse Gallery, the Southeast Missouri Regional Museum, a River's Edge Pottery Guild show at Grace Cafe and art at The Artist Studio.

Owner Peg MacDougall named the Edward Bernard Gallery after her father and her father-in-law.

"When we started this project, we knew we would need inspiration," said MacDougall. "There's no better inspiration."

MacDougall doesn't mind trying the gallery's hand at First Fridays against such competition. She doesn't want to infringe on other galleries, just offer something different.

"We want to offer a different dimension to the area arts in a different part of town," said MacDougall. "Hopefully people can come here, then go see the things at other galleries."

The gallery's art ranges from glass jewelry to large sculptures, with a variety of shapes, colors and artistic themes, but all professional. The pieces can be expensive, but MacDougall hopes that won't turn anyone away from at least coming to look at the art.

She hopes even penniless college students can come appreciate the beauty.

"We want to welcome everyone," she said.

MacDougall has loved art glass for many years.

"Welcome to my passion," MacDougall said to a friend who entered the gallery for the first time Tuesday. She immediately leads the friend to a display of pieces by Missouri artist Sam Stang, who studied with well-known glass blower Lino Tagliapietra.

"You can't have glassblowers from all over the United States and not have one from Missouri," MacDougall tells her friend.

Across town in the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri's galleries hang the art of another Missourian, Win Bruhl. Bruhl's exhibit will be a welcome home for the Southeast Missouri State University alumnus and former professor. He now chairs the art department at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.

Bruhl gained quite a following in Cape Girardeau as both a professor and artist before leaving the university, said Arts Council gallery director Margaret Dement.

"Win Bruhl was always very human and very patient with his students," said Dement. "They all loved him."

Bruhl's work on display consists of 22 monotypes, linocuts, oils and acrylics that focus on landscapes, often making natural elements abstract and forming new images.

"The subject of the landscape is inexhaustible," Bruhl says in his artist statement.

The professor's work will be accompanied by 31 photographs of Howard Steinburg of San Luis Obispo, Calif. The photos give new life to dead leaves, using lighting and shape to add dimensions that didn't once exist.

The result is an abstraction of natural form, much like in Bruhl's work, with leaves taking the shapes of a dancer in the air with an raised arm and outstretched leg or a human brain. Of course, it's up for interpretation.

An opening reception with the artists will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. at the galleries at 32 N. Main St.

Another former Southeast professor will be displaying his work at the same time at the Juden Schoolhouse Gallery, located at 900 W. Cape Rock Drive. Dr. Jerry Miller will present his movable, abstract wood relief sculptures at the gallery.

Miller retired from Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg recently after 41 years of teaching at all levels.

Dr. Edwin Smith helped coordinate the show. The sculptures are all wall-mounted pieces that invite the viewer to interact with the pieces, moving them and rearranging them in different patterns, said Smith.

This show will last for one night only, from 7 to 10 p.m.

Those looking for realism in their art can visit the Southeast Missouri Regional Museum on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University. The museum will host an opening reception from 4 to 7 p.m. for "Fowl Play," an exhibition of realistic paintings of waterfowl from the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisc.

The exhibition is part of the Woodson museum's permanent collection that has been put on a national tour. The Woodson museum is one of the premier museums in the nation for this type of art, said Southeast museum director Stanley Grand.

While the exhibit isn't the Southeast museum's typical fare, Grand said it does give the museum a chance to offer more diversity in art with a subject relevant to Southeast Missouri's place on migratory bird paths.

"This is high-quality artistic talent, but a subject that is perhaps accessible to more people," said Grand.

The exhibition consists of work from several artists and will remain in the museum until Nov. 22.

None of the works are for sale, but at Gallery 1.2.5, located at 125 N. Main St., 86 new original oil paintings have been brought in for October's First Friday, all ready for new homes.

Each piece is framed and ready to take home, bought from an art dealer in California, said Chrisie Hahs with the gallery. The pieces range in subject from well-known European street scenes to cowboys in the Old West.

Gallery 1.2.5 will stay open until 10 p.m. tonight.

The River's Edge Pottery Guild will also have items for sale today at Grace Cafe from 6 to 9 p.m. This month the guild's show will feature Tammy Clark of Dexter, Mo., a self-taught potter who makes both functional and decorative pieces.

The Artist Studio, located at 38A N. Main St., will also get in on the First Friday action by showcasing 25 watercolors created in the studio's September workshop by five students from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

The studio will also accept sign-ups for its November acrylics workshop.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182