
{"id":9093,"date":"2010-02-18T11:31:30","date_gmt":"2010-02-18T19:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=9093"},"modified":"2010-03-18T11:25:59","modified_gmt":"2010-03-18T19:25:59","slug":"%e2%88%9a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/02\/18\/%e2%88%9a\/","title":{"rendered":"For art&#8217;s sake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>RECENTLY . . . <\/p>\n<p>Valarie Schwartz<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nCalm usually does not describe an artist at his or her first solo exhibit.<\/p>\n<p>Calm, happy and comfortable can all be applied to Ben Gunter, 27, at his first solo show at Carrboro Town Hall last week. Gunter greeted friends, family and supporters \u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00c2\u00a0many who had never seen his work \u00e2\u20ac\u201d with hugs, high fives and relaxed smiles. For this young man, support and networks keep him functional. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ben was born with tuberous sclerosis,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d his mother, Kay Gunter, told me. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He was three months old when he had his first seizure.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Seizures remain an issue even after brain surgery in 2004. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a small part of him,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kay said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t drive, but he can do so many things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He assists a coach in training a wrestling team, plays basketball on a team, sings in a choir, is learning to play guitar and has his own lawn-mowing service. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ben LOVES mowing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kay Gunter said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If there were a strip of grass all the way to California, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d mow it!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Kay has been a stay-at-home mom for Ben and his elder sister, Kate, and has become adept at networking to find the best answers, helping Ben live as independently as possible. A business partner in the mowing business does the driving.<\/p>\n<p>Ben told me that his grandmother gave him his first paints. She was an artist, and when he was a child they would go to the beach together and paint.<\/p>\n<p>Ben loves colors, and when describing a piece of art he starts by naming the colors. When a friend asked what kind of paint he used, Ben answered, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dark.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>His teacher, Maggi Grace, of Carrboro acknowledged that he opts for few pale colors in his palette of ink, tempera and acrylic paints. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He chooses color with absolute certainty. There are no aesthetic norms; the world is open to him, with no reason to resist any notion that he has.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Grace said that where many painters struggle to blend colors without leaving sharp edges, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ben just takes the brush, dips it in the red and paints; then he dips it into the blue without washing it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very spontaneous.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d After he has finished a piece (and<br \/>\nGrace said he knows emphatically when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s finished), he looks at it to learn what he has painted, then provides the title. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ben has several things he really loves and weather is one of them,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said a friend, Deborah Grammer. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obvious in his titles: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Purple Rain,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gigantic Tornado\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Raining Again,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d among others. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wonderful to see the confidence he has about the work he does \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and he should,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Chris Beacham, who lives and works in downtown Carrboro (he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a policy consultant at RTS) and became an artist himself about four years ago during a mid-life crisis. He too is a student of Grace. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maggi helped me through a very bad time in my life. She taught me how to think.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He now chairs the Carr-boro Arts Commission. <\/p>\n<p>Danny Lloyd of Carrboro has known Ben all his life. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153His father, Barrett Gunter, was a college roommate at UNC,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lloyd said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We go to a lot of games together. Ben\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a diehard Tar Heel basketball fan.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ben was happy to see Lloyd, who very much liked his art. <\/p>\n<p>Ben and his father, an obstetrician\/gynecologist at Durham Regional Hospital, enjoy a close relationship, and a highlight of the evening was when Barrett arrived with another group of supporters. <\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, Barrett told me that by the end of the event about 60 people had visited. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were told that it was one of the best turnouts they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had and that nobody ever sells anything at these shows.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ben, however, sold four paintings. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ben, I think, sells himself a little bit short, but he and his art teacher, Maggi, have a pretty special relationship,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Barrett said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s able to capture things. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something he enjoys.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153His art is beautiful for art\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sake \u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00c2\u00a0not because of his disability,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Grace said.<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Valarie Schwartz at 923-3746 or valeriekays@mac.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Calm usually does not describe an artist at his or her first solo exhibit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9093"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9380,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9093\/revisions\/9380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}