First Friday this Friday

This month’s First Friday event, hosted by The Slate Valley Museum and Pember Museum and Library will features an unveiling of a month-long shale art exhibit along with a unique display of large, wild animal paintings.

Get the first look at Andrew Gioulis’ newest series Fissility: Symmetry in Shale brings shale harvested from a rock ledge bordering Lake St. Catherine in Poultney, Vt., to life. The work uses the natural property of rocks to split along planes of weakness into thin sheets as the medium for his one-of-a-kind pieces.

As a graphic designer, Gioulis often depends on computer programs to achieve duplication and symmetry in his digital designs, while traditional artists are able to attain some of the same results through other techniques such as Millefiori used in Venetian glasswork. Certain materials in nature possess properties that allow for a similar process of duplication, from which his current work is based.

Renowned local artist Roy Egg will be on hand to dispense his trademark witticisms and answer any questions while showing off fantastic creations including a white rhino, elephant, large cats, peacocks and other jungle creatures.

Egg is best-known for his painted roosters, hens, and eggs, but he also paints other barnyard creatures, and actually, no subject is banished from his brush. To bring awareness to world hunger, he once did over forty paintings of food and the animals that provide it. Another time he painted his chickens dressed as royalty or leaning on motorcycles.

First Friday is Sept. 4 from 7-9 p.m. at the Pember Library and Museum and the Slate Valley Museum.