An Oneonta native’s unique art made over the course of 29 years will be on display at the Fenimore Art Museum.
Artist Timothy Sheesley’s “Things Kept,” a collection of lithographs, is scheduled to have its opening reception from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, July 25 at the Fenimore Museum of Art Community Gallery in Cooperstown.
Sheesley’s art is created through lithography, a unique printmaking process which dates back to the late 18th century.
Sheesley said on Monday, July 22 that the collection consists of 23 pieces of color lithographs.
“It’s kind of a long process, maybe an obsession,” he said.
While Sheesley worked on “Things Kept,” he was teaching, printing and mastering his method along the way.
He said he began his work with the medium almost 50 years ago as an undergraduate art student at SUNY Oneonta.
Sheesley said the SUNY Oneonta Alumni Association will be sponsoring the gallery’s reception.
“I’m an alum, so it’s a treat,” he said.
Sheesley said he received the title of Tamarind Master Printer from the Tamarind Institute of Lithography at the University of New Mexico, and he received his MFA in printmaking from Tyler School of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia where he also taught printmaking.
He has taught printmaking at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Breda School of Art in the Netherlands, SUNY Oneonta, Colgate University and Syracuse University.
For 16 years, Sheesley worked as the director of the Martin-Mullen Art Gallery at SUNY Oneonta.
“I worked with artists from around the country, making original artwork, and so being a gallery director was another opportunity to do that,” he said.
He has been the owner and master printer of Corridor Press, a collaborative professional lithography print studio in Otego, for 40 years.
More recently, the focus of the studio is no longer printing other people’s work, so he has been able to focus on his own.
Sheesley has had galleries display his work around the country, and even internationally with an exhibition at Tianjin Fine Arts College in Tianjin, China.
He said that his work has been displayed in Cooperstown before, but never at the Fenimore.
Sheesley said that the “things kept” are objects, ideas and memories held onto and internalized.
Each color lithograph in the gallery is a part of an ongoing series called “Cabinet Series,” and each piece is based on “a generalized form of the primitive cabinet,” he said.
He said that cabinet serves as the platform for isolated still life objects. Objects in relation to the cabinet are arranged in space to draw the viewer’s attention.
“It’s the curiosity about simple objects that kind of makes you think about bigger things,” he said.
“Things Kept” is scheduled to be on display for the public from July 26 to Aug. 26 at the Fenimore.