In the long tradition of Rockport artists, Rocky Delforge, 24, has set up a print-making studio a block away from Sandy Bay. The famous Cape Ann light filters into his organization disguised as clutter in his studio disguised as a garage.
Still, there are no seagulls or sailboat images here. Delforge’s muscular prints and drawings remind me of Charles Scheeler’s early 20th century photographs of flying highway ramps and sky-scrapered avenues. Delforge has “arm” in his drawings, confident lines that efficiently (and dare I say with purity?) define space. In the whimsical roof of Gloucester’s city hall, or in the rivulets of character of an old man’s face, Delforge extracts just enough but adds much.
Delforge is a member of a recently launched organization called The Rockport Creative Collective, a group of working artists living in Rockport who gather monthly in each other’s studios to drink wine and talk about what it means to be an artist today in this small seaside town. To tweet or not to tweet, the group asked themselves recently. Some said yes; some firmly no. They talk about things like that, but mostly they gather just the way artists always have - the need to talk and be together. From that an artistic vibe is born, something worth reviving on our Cape so historically heavy with painters and sculptors.
Particularly interested in collaborations between retailers and artists on Cape Ann - retailers often have blank walls that need filling and local artists have Art -Delforge hung a show of prints at Thistle Hill in Rockport this past March, and for a night, in the dreariest time of year, one shop on Main St. glowed with light and laughter for the opening - more reason to collaborate.
You can see Delforge’s work hanging now in Pleasant St. Tea Co, at 7 Pleasant St. in Gloucester and at this link to his Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rocky-Delforge-Artist/121621697928041?sk=photos
