New exhibit opens at Gibson Gallery

Two area artists have teamed up to present the latest exhibit at the Gibson Gallery.

“A Medley of Mediums: CopperFish Creations and Hidden Owl Studio” runs through July 14 at the Richmond St. art gallery. CopperFish Creations features the art of Carole Deschaine, who creates fish-themed artwork using up-cycled industrial parts. Hidden Owl Studio features the work of Cheryl Borkowski, who creates collages using magazine pages, with that type of artwork being her focus since 2023.

“It’s been a real blessing and a surprise for me,” said Borkowski. “I’m a relatively new artist. I’ve been doing collages for about a year-and-a-half.”

Aside from entering her work into exhibits in Kingsville, it was the first exhibit for Borkowski and was paired with Deschaine.

“It’s been really exciting to do it with another artists who does her work with a lot of mixed media,” said Borkowski.

Borkowski said she has about 16 pieces of her own in the exhibit, most of which feature an owl somewhere in the piece.

“All of my pieces are inspired by memories, things I love or things I dream about or admire,” she said.

Noting she retired in 2018, Borkowski starting creating art in various different media, but collage was eventually what she decided to work on. Both Borkowski and Deschaine said Gibson Gallery exhibit committee chair Trudy Dempsey was the one who put them together.

“Once I saw (Deschaine’s) work, I said I wanted to do this,” said Borkowski. 

Deschaine said she has been “honing her love of fish and artistic skills for the past 15 years.” She used her creative spirit to develop a gift for a friend who often shared his cottage for summer vacations with her family. The first fish was created, a large mouth bass mirroring the fish that was often caught on the lake near the cottage.

Described as “the genesis of Carole’s artistic journey,” Deschaine’s fish evolved to include metal embellishments and her signature copper wire sewing technique. She reuses materials that would be otherwise headed for the landfill. She has used discarded risers from a staircase company for the oak base of her fish, with her newest series coming from discarded whisky barrel lids.

Deschaine has created over 100 unique pieces, including numerous commissioned work, and the pieces are given names “that capture the essence of the piece and the client.” She credits her family, including her husband Mark, for supporting her art and her family who supplies some of the materials for her art such as metal parts, bird and copper wire.