New Exhibits Open Friday at Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center

Four new exhibits will be celebrating their grand opening at the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center (BBAC) Friday, kicking off a new year full of new classes and workshop at the community center.

"Trendy, creative and tailored to start the new year off right, we have a fantastic schedule of events and classes for students of all ages and levels," said Annie VanGelderen, president and CEO of the BBAC.

"Registrants can choose from tile-making, clay, drawing classes, ceramics, knitting, jewelry, abstract expressionist painting and encaustic painting classes, just to name a few," she added. "We look forward to a wonderful new year, supporting this region's artists and aspiring artists."

Birmingham's aspiring artists, meanwhile, can gain inspiration from the four new exhibits set to be revealed Friday:

• Robinson Gallery: On display will be the work of Detroit painter and sculptor Jack Johnson. Johnson's work has appeared in more than 40 shows in Detroit and after spending 25 years in the military, Johnson now works soley as an artist.
  
  Johnson has also served as a curator at Cafe Detroit, 4731 Gallery and Musee D'Troit. "Some of the best art I have ever witnessed was done by people who were not famous, well known, or trained," Johnson told the Toledo Free Press in 2006. "Just people like you and me. Art is part luck, part good idea, part skill, but mostly it's effort."

• Kantgias/DeSalle Gallery: On display will be the work of Troy mixed media artist Larry Zdeb. On Artbreak.com, Zdeb notes that "Automatism, Dada and chance always seem to find a way into my work."
  
  Working primarily with mixed media though he also creates jewelry and sculptures, Zdeb says he tries to use vintage materials whenever he can so that his pieces appear as if they were made in the past.

• DeForrest-Watson Ramp Gallery: On display will be the work of Brownstone painter and ceramic artist Jill Rowan.
  
  A 2010 graduate of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and a former instructor there in ceramics and 3D art, Rowan has had her work exhibited everywhere from Northfield, MN, to Farmington Hills, to the Mustafa Ali Gallery in Syria.

• LaBan Commons Gallery: Here will be displayed the work of the BBAC Independent Painters Group, artists who gather every week to paint.

The BBAC will celebrate the exhibits' opening from 6-8 p.m. Friday during an opening reception. All exhibits will be on display through Feb. 22.

The exhibits are free and open to the public Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. and Friday-Saturday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m.