events

UP COMING EVENTS

April 17th- Solo Show by Liz Lane

"She's a witch"

2142 Tyler Road Hoover, AL 35226

Liz Lane will have a solo show, April 17th at her studio in Birmingham, Alabama. In this body of art and writing, Lane hopes to explore the relationship between creativity, spirituality and mysticism.

While mysticism has always been present in her own work, she has realized it is an important thread in all types of creativity for people of all religious and even non religious backgrounds. For each individual, this connective thread presents itself under many names.

She often felt spiritually connected as a young child, but after learning about the Salem witch trials, tried to abandon this connection out of a very litteral fear of persecution, not realizing that most of these "witches" did not identify as such and were community leaders and leaders.

Earlier in her carrer, several people joked, including Lane herself, about being a "witch," when mentioning the success she had in the art world. Lane has always disliked the term because it is often applied to women who are successful. Not only that, the term diminshes hard work and replaces it with magic. She thinks the thought process is something like, "They surley couldn't do that on thier own, it must be magic."

However, during Covid, with many hours alone in the studio, she did heavily rely on a spiritual connection. She belives that connection is a collective conciousness that everyone can feel if they let themselves. She strives to present this conectedness, extreme empathy, in her work for others to not just see, but feel and tap into.

Lane belivies you can call this spiritual connection whatever you would like, but if we all allowed ourselves to feel this connectivity, we would be more empathic and connected to others, take better care of our planet, and ourselves. It would be easier to take off the sociatal mask and we wouldn't have to distract ourselves from who we are.

Allthough a big undertaking, perhaps to large for the human scale, Lane hopes her paintings can present a glimpse into this reality- She's not a witch- just deeply connected, and she wishes everyone else can find this too.

What we Care About

COMMUNITY

WHAT WE CARE ABOUT

Liz has always felt a strong internal calling to use her talents to better the world. She has built her small business around this philosophy. Her desire to paint for the greater good was only deepened with the births of her two daughters. She wants to leave this planet a little better for the next generation.

Liz Lane Gallery works with and donates to a handful of local environmental organizations such as the Black Warrior Riverkeeper and GASP. Our team knows there is a sense of urgency in aiding environmental groups with a mission to provide clean air and water and a livable environment to the next generation. We are in the process of offsetting our carbon footprint as a store. You may notice reused packaging on your orders, e-receipts, and when we finally can have events again, vegetarian horderves and reusable cups and plants. We would love to eventually work with larger art suppliers to reduce the plastic used in packaging art supplies in an economic and sustainable way.

Our gallery team also believes that creating makes us human. We have been creating since people first walked the earth. Sadly, though, creativity is seen as a privilege in our culture instead of as an essential human function, such as eating and breathing. School art programs are the first to be cut when money gets tight in school budgets. Some art departments in the city of Birmingham receive around $1 per student for the entire year for art supplies. That will not even buy a pack of paper. We would love to see budgets reallocated to better serve arts education, which we believe is as necessary to a full education as reading and writing, but until then, we work with individual teachers to give money for art supplies where we can.

On each of these missions, we are open to collaborations. Due to Covid- 19 we will not be hosting any in person events but that hasn't stopped us from donating close to eight thousand dollars to these causes in 2020. We love doing online events and would be happy to chat about ideas to make the world a better place. Get in touch and let's work together.