The Inside-OUT Gallery’s “All Small” exhibit invites to not sweat the big stuff, and to appreciate the smaller things in life. — Photos by By Anqi Zhang

By Anqi Zhang

The All Small exhibit at Inside-OUT Gallery located in the windows of the CVS Pharmacy in Davis Square has been open to the public 24/7 from November 10, and will remain there until December 6. Small in scale, size or content, the exhibit aims to get passers-by to appreciate something delicate and subtle while on their way to confronting the big changes happening around the world – the pandemic, climate change, divisive political landscape, and systematic racial injustice.

“Indeed, everything in this world today seems to be enormous, and getting bigger all the time,” according to the event page. “The Brickbottom Gallery would like to propose the opposite as a kind of antidote. Bigger is not necessarily better!”

The exhibit showcases the works of members of the Brickbottom Artists Association, in collaboration with the Somerville Arts Council (SAC). It was originally designed to be a “directory show” for Brickbottom Open Studios, an event inviting people to artist’s studios and homes in order to appreciate their pieces, and for people to get a preview of artists’ works. The annual event had to be canceled, but the themed exhibit gets its chance to be presented to the public.

Under current circumstances where many museums, galleries are yet to open, an exhibit like this is an accessible way for people to see local artists’ works right in their neighborhood, according to SAC Office Manager and Arts Coordinator Heather Balchunas, one of the curators.

It is also a window for artists to get connected with people, said printmaker Debra Olin. She is the other curator of the exhibition. “One of the pleasures, and the importance of being an artist is being able to share your work with other people, get feedback, and just kind of give you the evidence to continue working,” she said. “And so, when you’re isolated from your viewers, then it makes it difficult.”

More than 30 works by 13 artists include paintings, sculptures, photography and mixed media art are displayed in the two windows. Ellen Young’s Blue Studies is a picture frame made up of eight small pictures of the sky and clouds. The clouds on the pictures are “painted” by removing the blue paint with a solvent, exposing the white of the paper. She also added a bit of gray pastel.

After joining an organization called Cloud Appreciation Society, Young became an enthusiastic cloud-spotter and is good at identifying different clouds ever since. “The sky is my favorite subject right now, because it lifts my spirits to look up into all that vast spaciousness and light and color,” said Young.

Several of Pauline Lim’s paintings are included in the exhibit. Characterized by vibrant colors, three-dimensional items, banners with slogans, diverse animal characters, many of her works “have to do with the frustration of being trapped in a mortal existence,” the artist wrote on her website. “The increasing aches and pains of aging underscore this dilemma to me every day, and make me seek out color and beauty, as well as the relief of laughter alongside the recognition of despair.”

I Am Nearing the End is a work inspired by a walk in Kendal, UK, when the sky was gloomy and the trees were naked, Lim said. “My husband was walking up a path in this stark landscape. I am 54 now, and the greater part of my life is behind me, so I was thinking of my own mortality.”

I Knew You Would Find Me! was inspired by the frequent dreams the artist has making her feel lonely in the world. “I think of the joy this floating girl would feel when she finally spots her beloved pet. But she has to float above all of the obstacles in the way to see the little dog,” Lim said.

Painter Jacky Pullman enjoys creating with acrylic (mostly) and pastels (occasionally), and gets inspiration from things around her. No matter whether it’s flowers in her front yard, or a place where she spent her vacation.

Belize depicts the chairs that Pullman and her husband spent many afternoons lounging in, reading on the beach in Hopkins, Belize. Her Rose of Sharon and End of the Hyacinth both feature flowers in containers.

“The Rose of Sharon was a theme in many of my paintings this past summer. There was a large Rose of Sharon tree in my front yard. I would pick a branch and put it in water every week. Every day a new flower would open as the one from the day before dropped off,” Pullman said. “The grape hyacinth grows in my garden in the spring, and it’s always sad when their season ends. Painting them keeps them alive a bit longer!”

Graphic designer, illustrator and calligrapher Pier Gustafson has been creating many things out of recycled boxes lately. He is fond of boxes because the graphics printed on them give him lots of inspiration. 

Gustafson’s Picnic is composed of a couple of fishes made with recycled USPS shipping boxes. While he was making the little fishes, he found another possibility with the red parts on them. “The red parts had not been used in the fish and were laying in a little pile and I suddenly saw it as a big bad red fish … i.e., Trump,” according to Gustafson. “He was in the news speaking of the problems of mail-in voting and I decided that would be his undoing. Little blue democratic fish devouring the big bad red republican monster.