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Art of Lavinia Hale to be featured at Terre Haute gallery
TERRE HAUTE — Celebrating the timeless beauty of Indiana’s west-central nature preserves, a Greencastle-based artist will have her work on display at a Terre Haute art gallery for the next several weeks.
Artist Lavinia Hale created “Preservation,” an exhibition of paintings that will be displayed at the Swope Art Museum Education Center Gallery from July 7-24.
The paintings include impressionistic-style plein air sketches and finished works highlighting a nature preserve in each of Parke, Putnam, Sullivan, Vermillion and Vigo counties.
“As the world grows increasingly virtual and busy, the need to protect beautiful natural spaces where the public can find refuge and healing accelerates,” Hale said. “My family loves visiting nature preserves, and I want my children to experience the peace and awe that time in nature provides.”
To that end, the opening reception on July 7 from 5–8 p.m. will include a fundraiser with the proceeds going to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’s President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust Fund, which seeks to acquire and protect land that represents outstanding natural resources and habitats.
Hale donated several works to be sold via silent auction with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the trust fund. Additionally, 50 percent of all sale profits leading up to and including the night of the event will also be donated.
The reception will include a presentation on the fascinating history of Fern Cliff, a beloved nature preserve in Putnam County, by Clint Maddox.
Nature preserves represented in the exhibit include Fern Cliff, Rocky Hollow-Falls Canyon Nature Preserve in Turkey Run State Park in Parke County, Smith Cemetery Nature Preserve in Vermillion County, Jackson/Schnyder Nature Preserve in Vigo County and Shakamak Prairie Nature Preserve in Shakamak State Park in Sullivan County.
The exhibition is a culmination of a grant fellowship awarded to Hale after attending the On-Ramp Creative Entrepreneur Accelerator program, which also included a three-day intensive entrepreneurship and community engagement workshop. This activity is made possible in part by the Indiana Arts Commission, which receives support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Hale grew up in several states on both the East Coast and West Coast in a creative, can-do family. After graduating from Brigham Young University with a BA in Visual Arts and marrying her sweetheart, Jacob Hale, her young family moved to Lafayette while Jacob attended graduate school at Purdue.
They promptly fell in love with Indiana, and with their eight children have called Greencastle home for the last 12 years. While always carving out time for art, she considers motherhood the highest and noblest calling in life.
Hale has served on the Greencastle Arts Council Board for the last seven years as secretary, vice president and president and is an active member of Indiana Plein Air Painters (IPAPA).
Photographs of the artwork in the exhibition and opportunities to participate in the fundraiser, including pre-show sales, can be found at lhaleart.com.