As downtown Bloomington’s art galleries prepare for a milestone Art Walk, one of the event’s founders unveils an exhibition that is both new, and decades in the making.
Angel Ambrose first debuted Reckoning Home this summer at Foster Gallery, a division of First United Methodist Church of Peoria. A version of the exhibition is on view for a month in the Monroe Building, where Ambrose has had her studio for more than two decades.
Gallery director Eugene Maison left the topic completely up to Ambrose.
“I couldn’t not paint the show,” said Ambrose, who was recovering from shoulder surgery when Maison approached her.
“It was like a wellspring. It just started bubbling up. I started looking back at where my origin was and what I was painting during my BFA show.”
Ambrose is a graduate of Illinois State’s art program, studying primarily with painter Harold Gregor. A large-scale, three-dimensional work hangs above a door frame in her studio that was part of her culminating show, depicted two houses — one dark, one light — slightly distorted. Home has been a recurring theme ever since.
“I saw how much life I’ve lived, how much healing I have received and wanted to provide hope to other people who are struggling with that longing for home. Longing for that safe place. A place of beauty,” said Ambrose.
Such a place was unknown to Ambrose growing up in Pana, a small town 90 miles south of Bloomington-Normal. She was a ward of the state, arriving in Bloomington-Normal at age 17 with “a lot of fresh trauma.”
Ambrose’s high school art teacher, Carol Kessler, brought her to ISU for a two-week residency. That sealed Ambrose’s desire to attend ISU for college. It was the only school she applied to.
“I really didn’t know about Harold,” she said. James Butler, a pastel artist and printmaker who founded Normal Editions, was another influence," she said. “Harold ended up becoming my number one because I ended up painting predominantly. I didn’t know what I was doing, but somebody did. He was perfect for me. He was challenging, sometimes difficult. But he got me, and that’s what I needed. He helped set free inside of me that visual vocabulary I had.”
Over time, Ambrose’s work has gotten less representational and more conceptual. These days, she paints ideas more than things. Reckoning Home is still connected to real images and stories, but veers into abstraction. It’s inherently hopeful, filled with bright colors, a little bit of sparkle and moments of serenity and whimsy. Short narratives about each piece, written by Ambrose, share personal stories and Christian parables that have served as inspirations for her paintings.
“I’m hoping it will be a very encouraging show for people,” she said. “In the middle of all of that, I still struggle. I still have doubts and fears. There are also images in the show that speak to the darkness wanting to overtake us, but not being overtaken. To me, there’s beautiful courage in that.”
25th Art Walk
Ambrose’s studio at 101 W. Monroe St. is just one of more than a dozen locations whose doors will be open from 4-9 p.m. Thursday and Friday for downtown Bloomington’s Art Walk.
In 2000, Ambrose, Herb and Pam Eaton, who own another studio and gallery downtown, and late artist Kay Seefeld launched a grassroots collective called the Around the Corner Art Group because their studios were around the corner from one another.
“When I quit my day job to do art, Pam Eaton approached me,” Ambrose said. “She said, ‘Angel, if you say yes, Herb will say yes, because he likes you.’ It was sort of that simple. We wanted to show our art. Were we trying to start something? In some ways, I think we hoped we were. But in other ways, we were just doing the next logical thing.”
Twenty-five years later, more than 100 exhibiting artists are participating in this year’s Art Walk that aligns with First Friday activities downtown. Ambrose credits the next generation, specifically Art Vortex Studio owner Janean Baird, as the collective’s primary organizer, with that growth.
The Art Walk marks the final weekend for Art Vortex's first guest exhibition, Lele, la muñeca mexicana, by photographer and journalist Yolanda Alonso.
Ambrose said the remaining Around the Corner artists need the fresh energy Baird and others have brought to the arts scene, but she’s also not going anywhere any time soon.
“I want to leave it better for those coming,” she said. “The good thing about art is we never retire. It’s just a matter of whether we can still create, whether I can still get up these stairs. We hope to not go anywhere but we certainly are grateful for all of the energy that’s happening.”
Reckoning Home is on view at Angel Ambrose Fine Art Studio and Creative Space, 101 Monroe St., #201, Bloomington. The studio is open from 4-9 p.m. Nov 6 and as part of the 25th annual Art Walk. The show also is viewable Saturdays and Tuesdays through Dec. 5, or by appointment.
