PAST EXHIBITIONS

Canal Street Art Gallery presents: Charles W. Norris-Brown: Distant Thunder Studio, on view from April 21st through June 10th. Join the Gallery on 3rd Friday Gallery Night in Historic Downtown Bellows Falls from 5-7pm, April 21st, to celebrate the opening of the show. All Gallery events are free and open to the public. 

Charles W. Norris-Brown: Distant Thunder Studio exhibits all of the original artworks from the late artist’s graphic novel Thunder Basin within a re-creation of Norris-Brown’s studio as an interactive exhibition including artmaking for the public, digital cataloging of the graphic novel, and culminating in the launch of a Thunder Basin website. 

“I call my studio Distant Thunder. Sometimes I have a real studio. Other times Distant Thunder Studio is within me.” -Charles W. Norris-Brown. 

The Distant Thunder Studio show reveals the entire body of work from Thunder Basin, an unfinished graphic novel by Charles W. Norris-Brown. This collection is presented within a re-creation of the late artist’s studio. Finished works along with drawings, storyboard frames, studies, and writings are all included. Visitors are invited to interact with the show through exploring Norris-Brown’s notebooks, plein-air studies, sketchbooks, brushes, and palettes. Art supplies and a space to create are provided as part of the exhibit. Those who are inspired may write, draw, and paint with watercolor or ink, to make their own artwork and writing about Thunder Basin. 

Fans of the artist may become further involved through volunteering and assisting in the digital cataloging of all works pertaining to Thunder Basin to be available during the Distant Thunder Studio show, including artworks, sketchbooks and notebooks. Help bring one artist's vision to life of developing his graphic novel into a Creative Commons licensed work to be accessible for community-based projects world-wide. The goal of the digital cataloging process is to bring Charles W. Norris-Brown’s ‘unfinished’ work back to being a ‘work in progress’ and published on a Thunder Basin website.

Thunder Basin is the artist’s third book and unfinished work. Here a girl loses her beloved cell phone in the forest. Trickster Coyote picks it up and runs away with it, leading her to explore the forest, and ultimately, herself. This quest unfolds in the Thunder Basin along the west flank of Mt Mansfield, Vermont.

Select artworks in the show which are not for sale are available as pre-ordered, full size archival pigment prints on cotton rag paper. These reproductions are available only during the show. At the end of the exhibit each edition is closed, and then printed.