Kelley’s Convoy of Carved Trucks Comes to Town December 16 & 17

Cooperstown NY—The Art Garage will host a wall-to-wall exhibition and sale of carved painted trucks by preeminent Otsego County artist, Lavern Kelley, with a preview Saturday December 10, 11am-3pm, an Opening Reception Friday Dec 16, 4-7PM, an Open House Saturday December 17, 11-3PM, and Open Gallery Saturday December 24, 11am-1pm.

In addition to more than three dozen trucks carved in the 1940s-1990s, the gallery will also offer a small flock of Lavern Kelley birds, and notecards– and  hand painted Kenyan keychains presented as one-of-a-kind ornaments.  Proceeds from the sale of ornaments will benefit the Mukuru Art Collective, Nairobi, Kenya. A smattering of other art objects will be displayed in the window gallery, including a glowing, atypically-horizontal Tracy Helgeson landscape, a new edition of fanciful mugs by Marcie Schwartzman and other intriguing items.

The exhibition will also be open by appointment daily through January 31, 2023.

Artist Lavern Kelley (b. 1928) died in 1998. The Art Garage represents his estate. Over his lifetime he carved hundreds of trucks and a smaller number of tractors, creatures and figures. Most sold as he made them, usually to pay the taxes on his family farm. Those sold to the late collector, John Henry Eriksen, Stamford, were kept in a glass cabinet: their condition is impeccable, noted gallery director, Sydney Waller. Most of the others have the expected patina of objects stored in a shed on the farm back in the day.

The Opening Reception for Kelley’s (Quiet) Carved Convoy and Kenyan keychain ornaments will take place Friday December 16, 4-7PM, to which all are invited. A holiday Open House will occur Saturday December 17, 11am-3pm. The gallery will also be open Saturday December 24, 11-1PM.

The Art Garage is located at 689 Beaver Meadow Road, Cooperstown, NY 13327.

Images and more information can be found on Instagram or Facebook at  ArtGarageCooperstown. For more info contact  leartgarage@gmail.com, or call/text: 315-941-9607.  

MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST(S) LAVERN KELLEY lived and worked in Otsego County on the family farm at Kelley Corners. He began carving at age seven when, hospitalized for appendicitis, “a British lady” visiting the pediatric wing over the holidays gave him a pocketknife, his lifelong tool of choice.  His father did not approve of his art making as they had a farm to run. Initially created as crude toys for his brother Roger and Lavern, the carvings grew to become so technically accomplished that by 1998 they seemed exact metal replicas.  His work generally reflects the mid-20th century, a pantheon of now-seen-as-gas-guzzling, American-made trucks. Mr. Kelley also made two-sided drawings on long winter nights when chores were done, through the early 1950s. A few of these works on paper will be on display.  In the mid-1950s he began to photograph his finished work in carefully staged photographs composed outdoors and that made the trucks look ‘real’.  Selected examples will also be on display. During the last 12 years of his life, Kelley became something of a sensation in the folk-art world. The New York State Council on the Arts recognized him as a Master Folk Artist, the first in the state. He spoke and gave demonstrations locally as well as in New York (New York-Historical Society) and Santa Fe.  His work has been featured in The New York Times, Art and Auction and Kaatskill Life, as well as in traveling exhibitions including the SITES show, Diamonds Are Forever. Many private and public collections own works by Lavern Kelley, including The Smithsonian, The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe and locally, Fenimore Art Museum, The Farmers Museum, The Wellen Museum of Art at Hamilton College and the National Baseball Hall of Fame Museum.

The MUKURU ART COLLECTIVE outside Nairobi, Kenya, in the informal settlement of Mukuru was founded by Kenyan Adam Masava, whose success in the art world is matched by his desire to help other aspiring artists develop and succeed. To this end he has founded the art club: proceeds will help him buy art supplies for the program. Masava has twice exhibited at the Art Garage, mostly recently in the spring of 2022, when he also served as community-artist-in-residence for the region.

MARCIE SCHWARTZMAN Marcie Schwartzman is a fiber and clay artist living and working in Cooperstown, NY.   While attending Johns Hopkins University in the School of Engineering, she studied ceramics at a community center whose teachers became co-founders of the well-respected Baltimore Clayworks. A move to Richmond, VA took her to graduate study in Industrial Engineering, and clay classes at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. After career and child-rearing, she returned to clay in the 1990’s and in 2003 was apprenticed to Sara Baker of Bloomsburg, PA. There, she honed her skills and developed her fascination with ceramic glazes. A lifelong home sewer, she began to meld the two art forms into the work she is doing today.

The Art Garage is located at 689 Beaver Meadow Road, Cooperstown, NY 13327.Images and more information can be found on Instagram or Facebook at  ArtGarageCooperstown. For more info contact  leartgarage@gmail.com, or call/text: 315-941-9607 ###      

December Schedule:

Dec 16, open 4-7PM

Dec 17, open 11-3PM

Dec 24, 11-1PM

All other days: 

9 – 6 Daily by appointment