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The truly fun Cooperstown exhibition, Samurai Baseball: a fine-arts-look-at-baseball, offers a Last Chance Last Glance Day. In the spirit of a game, participating artists will offer ‘Surprise Sayonara Event’ special pricing on a range of artworks that defy and redefine traditional sports art. The show presents a rich array of highly original works by 15 artists: sculpture, paintings, pastels, photography, silk scarves and works on paper --- "sophisticated and fun fine art that holds its own in any environment,” noted curator, Sydney Waller. The two-bay exhibition features a stunning grid of limited edition art posters, each with on-message Japanese lettering, by Robert Seward, who lived in Japan for many years. There he taught at Meiji Gakuin University and championed the work of an American authority on Japanese baseball – Robert Whiting, author of The Samurai Way of Baseball, whom he frequently invited to lecture at the university.
Other artists’ works in the show: Marcie Schwartzman, a bead-embellished textile banner with a stitched image of Suzuki and his signature upheld bat, hidden in plain sight; David Wilson, a baseball impaled on a samurai sword (katana); and a repurposed samurai action figure atop a found baseball/monument embossed with key samurai tenets; Ada Yonenaka (Chelsea/Bowerstown), works on silk and on paper with delightful imagery repeated in extraordinary patterns; Steph Marcus (Cooperstown, Oneonta), hilarious baseball cards made of sculpted modeling clay on board featuring hall of famers…as cats, such as Pedro-Purr-tinez of the New York Pets. Charlie Bremer (Otego), rich paintings of impossibly-luminous glass and water that each unexpectedly reveal iconic baseballs; Ashley Norwood Cooper (Cooperstown, Oneonta) , a colorful up-close ‘worm‘s eye’ view of the natural world, her iconic bees buzzing a baseball nestled in the grass; Carey Clark (NYC), a dreamy painting from her renown 1980s NYC subway series; the legendary farmer artist Lavern Kelley (Oneonta NY, d. 1998), two carved, hapless members of team ‘Tinkerville Tomcats’ ; James Herman (Hartwick NY), a duo of powerful paintings that comment on homeplate; Chuck Matteson (Cherry Valley NY), a six-foot bat obelisk, a smaller curved bat for curve balls and an ‘American icons’ bronze of a cowboy and baseball; Marilynn Gelfman Karp (NYC /Charlotteville), ‘ornithology’ and ‘archeology’ assemblages, delicate nest sculptures filled with rare meaningful baseball memorabilia; Mary Padgett (New Woodstock, NY), colorful pastel paintings of baseballs unexpectedly placed on colorful textiles like so many giant pearls; Jim Sullivan (NYC and Jefferson NY), a muted painting of a soulful toy dog and a baseball, called Woof. In the photography department, Katharine Kreisher, with her winning Playing on the Girls Team, a dreamy hand-colored photograph of a gal in a gown batting a hydrangea out of the field, and Dennis Stahl ( Gilbertsville, d. 2023), whose black and white image of a baseball offered by a bearded man, a well-known local character who for years cheerfully waved or blew kisses at all passing cars on Rte. 23 outside Oneonta.
The garage’s third bay, the pop-up ‘MG Bay,’ presents Wilson’ s curated video clips of sword-brandishing “samurai baseball” action that further inform the experience. Also featured in the pop-up space: noted photographer Richard Walker’s baseball photographs, collectibles and memorabilia, tiles by Anda Stelian and iconic baseball posters, all Sayonara Specials.
A Windowsill Gallery above the front desk displays Ada Yonenaka’s fabulous one-of-a-kind stamped baseball notecards, a limited number of out-of-print publications: Diamonds are Forever: Artists and Writers on Baseball (co-curator, Sydney Waller) and a rare Ichiro Suzuki biography, edited/produced by Cooperstown’s Elmer Luke.
For Images and info see FB/Instagram @ArtGarageCooperstown, email [email protected] , text/call 315-941-9607, or call 607-547-5327 during gallery hours (Saturdays 11-3)
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
689 Beaver Meadow Rd, Cooperstown, NY, United States, New York 13326
