3 artists make debut at Marti’s on Main

Photos by Sue Cook – Diana Dudley stands with her drawings. She focuses mostly on human faces.

By Sue Cook, staff reporter

ALBION – Three new artists are featured at Marti’s on Main art gallery at 229 North Main St. For all three, it is their debut show as artists.

Brandon Blount-Carpenter is a local photographer and sculptor that Kim Martillotta approached to ask about having space in the gallery.

“I saw some of his photography through a friend on Facebook, and I told him that I liked his stuff,” Martillotta said. She kept an eye on his creations.

“Last fall, I said to him ‘Perhaps you should sign up and have a show,'” said Martillotta.

Blount-Carpenter’s works focus on detail that people often overlook in nature. Brandon spends five or six hours in the woods at a time. He sets out looking for mostly fungi, but captures other photographs as he goes along.

A lot of his art stems from his time in the woods with his grandfather, the late Don Cook. His grandfather, a wildlife photographer, taught him patience and to look for the subtle. Blount-Carpenter captures things that he wants to share with the world.

“My photos are capturing not just the big picture, but also the little small-scale macro pictures, stuff that people overlook,” he said. “Within each of the images are tiny details that sneak out at you. It gives people an idea of what they can see if they just go for a walk, relax, enjoy themselves and really open their eyes and look.”

Brandon Blount-Carpenter stands with his photograph of fungi inside a rusted-out can. Fungi are his main focus, but he finds several other subjects to photograph on his trips into the woods.

Brandon uses items found in nature, such as wood, skulls or feathers, and incorporates them into sculptures.

“I reclaim a lot from nature,” he said. “Whatever I find I tend to use in my sculpture work. It’s sort of an ironic satirical take on how man treats nature and nature’s resilience and it’s ability to bounce back to kind of become something else that man didn’t think it really was.”

Diana Dudley brought Martillotta drawings to look at before. Dudley had been coming to the shows at Marti’s for six years, and it was suggested that she make a premiere show at the gallery. Dudley then suggested that her son Mark Robinson should also have his first show at the same time. Martillotta thought it was a great idea.

Dudley draws mostly people and faces, though she also has a select number of still-life pieces displayed as well.

“I was born with the ability to sketch people. I reproduce what I see. I have to be looking at something. I don’t do anything out of my head,” she said.

She added,” If you really take a look at faces, you notice how very different they are.”

Mark Robinson explains that this painting, “Monacelli’s Quarry” is located right here in Albion. He sees it when he walks his dog and enjoys the way the elements of light and water come together in the setting.

Mark Robinson draws and paints with a wide variety of subjects, both real and surreal. Most of his paintings are of landscapes.

“When you have a live figure to work from, it kind of juices you up,” he said.

“Landscapes can be the same way. Another thing that keeps people happy and alive is just to be in nature. If you go for a walk in the park, you get an immune boost that’s way above what you get walking on a treadmill. If you have a painting of an outdoor scene, it helps give you just a little of that boost.”

Robinson continued, “I draw my inspiration from people who are very competent like Albrecht Durer or M.C. Escher. Everybody alive today has the opportunity to learn from all these teachers of the past. You don’t have to limit it to your teacher or your class. The world is your class. Take your lessons there.”

Marti’s on Main does not have set hours. Instead, the public is invited to stop by during the day throughout the month to view the works.