Frame Gallery presents “Judy's Canyon,” a solo art exhibit of paintings from Connie Schley Keetle’s memoir chronicling the experience of losing her best friend to cancer, and the discoveries that informed her life as an artist afterwards. The opening reception is Friday, September 20, 5-6:30 pm at Frame Gallery and includes an artist talk, book signing and light refreshments. The public is invited to attend.
Judy’s Canyon is a memoir that tells the story of artist Lisbeth “Connie” Schley Keetle’s 20-year artistic journey that began with the uneasy rumbling of an image that came to her that she didn’t understand ... Until she got a call that her best friend was in hospice.
This journey has culminated in Judy’s Canyon, a book signing and painting exhibit celebrating life and friendship through bold and abstract compositions of portraits and landscapes imagined and sensed. Connie will give an artist talk to provide context for the paintings, and share her creative process. She will be available to sign books for the memoir that features her paintings in the show.
Connie has primarily been a landscape painter for over 25 years. She has exhibited her paintings in Missouri, Vermont, Virginia, and Tennessee in galleries featuring solo exhibits and juried group shows. This project was born out of a friendship that started poolside at an apartment complex in Kansas City, Missouri, while she was a design department student at Kansas City Art Institute.
“Her first impression of me was that I was a snotty brunette brat from Vermont with no interest in acknowledging the presence of another human being by the pool that day. My first impression of her was that she was a large, loud, opinionated, and funny middle-aged woman. I hate to admit it, but I think we were both right.”
Many years later, Connie had a dream with an image one night that stayed with her. When Judy was nearing the end of multiple battles with cancer, the dream made sense and needed to be expressed. That was the beginning of Connie’s artistic journey into expressions and writings that were different then, and now, from most of her work.
Judy’s Canyon is a unique body of work that is deeply personal, and yet highly relatable to the lives of many people who have experienced the loss of their loved ones.