Catherine Sebastian Photos Highlight Impact of Elements By KAY CORDTZ
“Overdrive, Rt. 66”
“Lightning, summer storm” 12 • Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2013
A year after Catherine Sebastian’s participation in the Lambertville, New Jersey J.B. Kline Gallery’s Music Month exhibit in January 2012, the gallery hosted the grand opening of her one-woman show in December. But instead of the rock-and-roll photos that dominated Music Month, this show featured Sebastian’s non-music-oriented photographic canvasses. The show was titled “ELEMENTS” and included images of weather and storms, the moon and stars, wonderfully rusted cars— anything on which the elements might impact. During the three-hour opening reception, the gallery was filled with art lovers from New Jersey, New York City and the Philadelphia area, as well as from Woodstock, NY, where Sebastian resides. Adding to the festivities, a local acoustic band called Exile on Ferry Street provided rhythm to the lead guitar of Vinnie Zummo, whose solo albums and work with Joe Jackson are well-known in musician circles. Sebastian’s husband John, formerly of The Lovin’ Spoonful, sat in for a few jug band tunes as well. Sebastian’s art pieces were printed on large, museum quality canvases that showcase her distinctive eye for composition, color and depth-of-field. One photographic highlight featured the exact moment lighting struck in the horizon while she was driving! According to gallery manager Gary Cohen, “The ‘wow-factor’ of this and her other unique and inspiring photographic images kept the patrons engaged. But the real star of the evening was Catherine.” Cohen said that what made the gala so special, and prompted Sebastian to make subsequent weekend visits to the gallery before Christmas, was the personal interplay between the artist and the art-lover. “Catherine’s ability to engage the admirers in fascinating stories of the history of the locations, events and people in the photographs, as well as her ability to explain her techniques even to a non-photographer resulted in the gala and her weekends being filled with one-on-one sessions with so many people,” Cohen said. “All in all, ELEMENTS was one of the best received and artistically satisfying shows at the JB Kline Gallery.” Arthur Miles Saylor III, a Princeton, NJ writer who attended the show’s opening, observed that “her grasp of beauty and detail is intuitive and complete, her use of color and texture are stunning and the canvases can barely contain her vision. She has the curious, observant eyes of a child coupled with the artistic wisdom of an old soul. Too bad Catherine Sebastian and her camera can’t be everywhere at once.” Luckily for Lambertville art lovers, five of the canvasses from the J.B. Kline show are still on display at River Queen Artisans Gallery, and the J.B. Kline Gallery hopes to feature another show of her work next December.