Laura Balducci’s solo show, WINK, at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery is bright, colorful, engaging and just pure fun. She has taken on the disciplined task of what was Hemingway’s forte, writing every day and in Laura’s genre, a painting every day seriously.

Her show is represented by two modes: The first is the 46 colorful pencil crayon framed creations, consisting of 8 panels, each panel representing a day in the year, (save one that has less), totaling 365 days. The second is a installation of her studio where this task took place.

I’ll start with the second. Here we see her place of creation, complete with a photograph of her view through her window to the forest and swamp outside. On her actual desk beside her chair are her tools, -her pencil crayons, her small notebook and interestingly, a deck of tarot cards. When a card is randomly picked for each creation, it determines the colour range for that “painting”.

Laura invites the gallery audience to participate in her notebook and leave a small doodle behind rather than traditionally sign a guest book. This viewer observed many people adding to her notebook over the course of the opening evening, thoroughly enjoying the engaging process.

Decorating the walls of her simulated studio are her woven wool runners with fascinating stories of where the wool or dyes came from. These runners will soon be enough to stitch and cover her King size plus a double bed in their bedroom where a lot of their reading and surfing takes place with her partner.

The sketches surround the gallery with January starting at the left by the entrance going clock-wise around the gallery with December ending on the divider’s edge panel. It has only 7 panels. (Remember a panel equals one day of the year, and I believe leap year is also included in her count.) These daily sketches have a unity of bright, bold colors and all emit a feeling of happiness, - the sheer joy of daily renewal that is built into the creative process.

So where did that year go? “It happened in a BLINK of an eye”. Bravo Laura!

Do see the show! Take the time to participate, take a tarot card for inspiration and leave a portion of your self in her note-guest book.

Show continues Saturday and Sunday this and next weekend, 2-6 PM

Laura will give a talk next Friday the 21st celebrating the Summer Solstice, 6-9. She will be on hand all days to answer your questions