When artist Sandy Kunze was profiled in the Advance in 2004, a photograph showed her standing on a kitchen chair, straining to reach the top of a huge, heavily textured painting of an iron that was near completion.
The article explained that Kunze worked in her Wynndel dining room, but hoped that her husband, Dirk, would begin work on a studio later in the year. Now, in 2011, it would seem fair to observe that she has come full circle, completed a seven-year stretch of working in her own dedicated workspace, and then given it up to turn it into a gallery that is now open to the public.
“I’ve moved my studio into the basement of our house,” Kunze said, laughing at the raised eyebrows she gets when explaining herself. “We don’t have as many kids at home anymore.”
True to his word, Dirk built the large, double car garage-sized studio to the east of their home and for years Kunze revelled in the space, working on paintings and become increasingly adept at a potter’s wheel. A pottery kiln was acquired to bisque her pieces, most of which are finished out of doors to produce the raku finishes she favours.
While parental duties may have eased as her four boys grew steadily into young men, Kunze hasn’t spent the last seven years hidden away in her studio. She’s been active in Wynndel community activities and played a large role in helping her pottery group, the Wynndel Mudders, lease space from the community hall and turn it into a group studio. She has spearheaded events to showcase Mudders’ work, involving other artists and artisans to participate, as well. And she has continued to play a vital role in putting together art exhibitions in Creston, using her unerring artist’s eye to display the varied works of dozens of artists who work in a variety of mediums.
Two years ago, she had much of the Creston Valley talking about a calendar she put together as a fundraiser for the Options for Sexual Health clinic. Somehow she convinced more than a dozen unsuspecting males to pose wearing aprons she had created, most of which had women’s underwear sewn into them. The calendar was a hit among buyers as well as friends of the models, who still enjoy ribbing their heretofore macho buddies.
Why a gallery? Why now?
“There isn’t a local gallery where I can show all my work because a lot of the paintings are pretty big (some are as high as eight feet),” she said. “And having a gallery in our yard lets me work on my projects or in the garden until I hear someone arrive.”
Kunze has called her retail outlet Galvanized Art Gallery.
“It’s a veritable jungle of post-modern-retro-expressionism, and you might just want to pack a lunch for this art safari…this one of a kind shopping adventure,” the gallery’s rack card reads.
The word galvanized has several meanings, not surprisingly, the most apt of which is “to startle into action; to stimulate.”
But it is also associated with a process that makes metal resistant to corrosion, and galvanized sheet metal is evident both inside and outside the gallery. Two water features use galvanized metal to add interest to the seating areas on the lawns and decks that surround the building. Inside a large semi-circular countertop serves as a customer service area and holds displays, too. The counter is covered in galvanized sheet metal, one of the many creative construction features built by Dirk.
Sandy has a whimsical view of life and the gallery’s exterior is filled with curiosities. A flowerbed has a couple of paintings — her rejects — of chickens, because the families brood of chickens likes to peck in the dirt there. Beside the stairs that lead to the entrance are twisted mounds of bisqued clay that she saves from her pottery-making sessions. Four cymbals are attached to the exterior wall — she has plans to make them into a gong set that visitors can ring when she doesn’t hear them arrive.
Inside, the walls are filled with paintings, roughly sorted into phases from her Alberta College of Art days in Calgary (where she specialized in printmaking), her heavily textured depictions of household objects and now, muted depictions of greenhouse interiors, vineyards and still lifes with wine bottles.
One window is covered with material she made by stitching together lengths of film and another has a dozen underwear/aprons hanging to provide shade from the late afternoon sun. Shelves and plinths (some constructed with galvanized sheet metal) hold bowls, plates, vases and other utile pottery art. On the floor lies a stretched out pottery pig, perhaps four feet in length.
Galvanized Art Gallery, like the artist whose works fill it to the ceiling, is full of delightful surprises. It is open through September on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and whenever the open sign is displayed. Watch for the signs on the south side of Highway 3A, just east of the turnoff to Wynndel Box and Lumber, at house number 5057. Call 250-866-5728 for more information.