NEWS - SUN SETTING ON 'BLUE SKY' GALLERY

Tuesday, Jun. 21, 2011

Muralist closing up shop

Sun setting on Blue Sky gallery

World-known Columbia artist to focus on Europe, other markets

By OTIS R. TAYLOR JR. 

The message, printed on white computer paper and taped to windows, is clear and hard to miss: Blue Sky Gallery is closing.

After 22 years in Five Points, the gallery, which sells work made by its namesake, will shut down in the coming weeks.

“I want to make sure everyone gets the message,” Lynn Sky, Blue Sky’s wife, said.

On Friday and Saturday afternoon, the gallery buzzed with curious sidewalk strollers attracted by the sign in the window. Lynn Sky, who had already pulled out rare sketches and watercolor paintings by the artist, also introduced large canvases to the gallery floor. Hanging prominently on the wall, two pieces from “Truck Butts,” the re-imaging of tractor-trailer doors that was part of a two-show exhibition at City Art in September.
Blue Sky, 72, an internationally known muralist, created the giant fire hydrant sculpture “Busted Plug Plaza” on Taylor Street and “Neverbust,” a 25-foot chain connecting the old Kress and Sylvan Brothers buildings. “Tunnelvision,” a 50-by-75-foot mural on the AgFirst Farm Credit Bank building at Taylor and Marion streets, turned 35 last year.

In October, Blue Sky told The State that the gallery was on the verge of closing.

“I said two years ago, ‘Let’s end it,’” he said Saturday afternoon as a glass of wine rested on his paint-stained jeans. “The gallery’s dragging us down. We’re more interested in the international market now. That’s where my future is.”

The sometimes elusive figure, who wears his fringe status like a well-worn but trusted leather jacket, said he will miss the Saluda Avenue space across the street from Gourmet Shop.

“The gallery means a lot to me. I love coming here. I love meeting the people who come in,” the Columbia native added. “I love being connected to Five Points. I just look forward to coming down here.”
Cindi Boiter, who profiled Blue Sky in a spring issue of undefined magazine, said the gallery closing won’t diminish the value of the artist’s work. In fact, she said it might enhance it.

“Too often, the ready accessibility of art, like anything, inversely affects the degree to which we value it,” she said. “Let’s face it, we sometimes take our natural resources for granted — be they artists or whatever. I’m sure we’ll miss the daily viewing of Blue’s paintings when we walk down the street in Five Points, but I suspect that we’ll be even more pleased to see Blue’s work when it crops up in gallery showings.”

Lynn Sky, who opened her first Columbia art gallery on Holly Street in 1981, vacillated between relief and terror on a recent visit as she said several questions need answers. Where will she store the work that doesn’t sell? Will she and Blue spend more time in California where they have an apartment? How long, realistically, will it take to clear out the gallery? What does this mean for Blue Sky’s legacy?

“I would like for him to get credit, historically, for some of the ideas he’s generated,” she said. “It would be nice if he were recognized.”

There’s a year left on the current lease, and Lynn said someone wants the space, though she declined to reveal the next occupant. Blue Sky was recently named a trompe l’oeil master by an Italian magazine, and he said Lynn has discussed moving to Europe.

But he’s not done painting on this city. Last week he was negotiating for space on a downtown wall.
“If I can just get people to cooperate with me and let me do them. I can’t get a clear approval from the owner of the wall,” he said. “You would think with my track record, you know, being one of the top muralists in the world, that people would be begging me to paint on their walls.

“No, no, no. They’re very suspicious. Because I want to do it my way. I hate compromise.”