By DEBRA HAIGHT

Special to Leader Publications

Paintings, pottery and photographs are on display this month and next at the Buchanan Art Center with new exhibits by three area artists.

It is the first solo show at the art center for all three artists.

The new exhibits opened Wednesday, July 5, and will be up through Aug. 26.

A public reception for the artists will be hosted from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, July 16, at the center. The center, located at 117 W. Front St., is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays with exhibits, classes and a gift shop open to the public.

Mary Broccolo-Derr’s exhibit of oil paintings is entitled “Color, Light and Harmony” in the Roti Roti Gallery. She is a Niles resident and teaches at both Eau Claire High School and Southwestern Michigan College.

Broccolo-Derr is no stranger to the art center.

Her Eau Claire students have participated in several student art shows at the center and she has taught children’s and painting classes at the center in the past. She grew up in the Chicago area until her family moved to the Niles area when she was a teen.

Broccolo-Derr said she always wanted to teach art and is following in the footsteps of her father who she described as a “frustrated artist.”

“We would have drawing contests,” she said.

While she worked in watercolors for many years, this exhibit features the oil paintings she’s created over the last four or five years.

“I was doing watercolors and then I ventured into oils when my friends were doing plein air paintings,” Broccolo-Derr said. “What I loved about watercolors was the brilliance of the colors and I wanted that same effect with oils.”

The exhibit primarily features landscapes of lakes, forests and fields. “I’m usually inspired by the way light hits things,” she said. “I like the morning light and sunrises where there is more intense contrast. I will stop and take a picture when I’m driving and see a scene I like.”

Potter Greg Allen’s ceramic pieces can be found in the Showplace Gallery and nearby showcases.

He resides in South Bend but is currently building a home and studio near Niles. He previously owned West End Studios on West Front Street in Buchanan.

Allan has taken part in several area art events including Art Beat in South Bend, the Michiana Pottery Tour in Goshen and Art Attack in Harbor Country. In addition to the art center exhibit, he will have a one-day show at Domaine Berrien Cellars on July 22.

Allen’s exhibit is entitled “Journey from the Earth” and features a combination of his older and more recent works.

He has spent most of his career working as a mechanic engineering designer and became interested in southern folk pottery when he lived in North Carolina. He considers himself primarily self-taught, although he has taken a few classes.

“I make folk art style pieces including smoke jugs and face jugs in an old-timey Appalachian style,” Allen said. “People say my pieces remind them of what they see on the Antique Road Show.”

“Welcome to My Flower Garden” is the title of Rex Rose’s photography exhibit in the Hess Library Gallery. Rose is a Buchanan resident and has brought nearly 30 of his favorite flower photographs to exhibit at the center.

Rose’s love of photography dates back to his childhood when he had a Roy Rogers box camera. He is retired from a career as a machine repairman at Clark Equipment and A.M. General and now pursues his hobby with a Canon Rebel digital camera. His favorite subjects are nature-related whether it is flowers, animals, sunsets or Lake Michigan.

“I look for the blend of colors and the background,” he said. “I like to shoot pictures when the flowers still have raindrops on them after a rain […] I love taking pictures of flowers. They’re so brightly colored, and I don’t have to tell them to stand still.”

More than half of the photographs shown in this exhibit are of flowers and plants in his own backyard garden with the rest capturing images from his travels in Alaska, New Orleans, Missouri and Grand Rapids at the Meijer Gardens.