Newsletter, July 29, 2026
A conversation on Martha's Vineyard, a mini-residency in New Berlin, new projects for a year-end exhibition, Axis Gallery in Sacramento, last chance for "Twenty x Sixteen" at Morgan Lehman, and more
Hi you,
August is nearly here, and the calendar is covered with errands, talks, studio visits, overnights with friends, a short residency, another jurying project, and time with family. Here are a few items that might interest you.
First, on Saturday, August 8, I’ll head up to New Bedford and catch a ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, where I plan to interview Marion Wilson, the founder and director of The Floating Gallery in Vineyard Haven. Wilson bought a barge several years ago and turned it into a gallery on a quiet lagoon. I’m looking forward to their upcoming exhibition “Catastrophe,” inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s On Painting. Participating artists include Wilson herself as well as Louis Block, Barbara Friedman, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Ella Mahoney. Note that the show has an extremely short run – August 5–14.
Gallery talk and walk-through with Marion Wilson and Sharon Butler
Saturday, August 8, 2:00-3:30 pm
The Floating Gallery,100 Lagoon Pond, Vineyard Haven, MA.
The next week I’ll be at the Golden Foundation in New Berlin, NY, for a generous mini-residency. I’m taking a roll of canvas to start a series of paintings for a two-person exhibition in the fall at a beautiful not-for-profit, artist-run space in Brooklyn. In addition to showing the paintings, I’m planning to publish another limited-edition novella as I did with The Sorrows of Young Werther. This time, though, the text will be original, disguised as a self-help book called How to Become a Painter’s Painter and inspired by an essay I read on Substack about Dana Schutz. I’ll base my new paintings on the text.
The content began as a three-card tarot reading, courtesy of Claude, that seemed like a perfect recipe for becoming a good but under-recognized artist. Next I tasked Claude to produce a draft, and now I’m in the process of correcting hilariously bad advice, refashioning lousy prose, and lending the project decisively human authorship. I know it’s unpopular to admit this, but I find working with Claude, as Claude would say, “deeply amusing.” It reminds me of playing with a Ouija board or asking questions of an eight-ball.
So, yes, I’ve rolled AI, like other seductive digital tools, into my art practice. The idea is not to turn out images as Walter Robinson brilliantly did, or to render bloated art reviews, of which there are plenty out there already, but rather to continue exploring the interplay between digital and analog – now on a subtler, narrative level. I have long incorporated digital media in my work (see Dickathon, Outlines & Diagrams, Two Coats of Paint and Good Morning Drawings); noodling on texts produced by AI seems like a natural progression. I’m a bit sheepish about my data usage, though, having amassed a massive digital footprint over the years.
If you are out in Sacramento, please stop by the Axis Gallery, where I was invited to select work for their 21st Annual National Juried Competition this year. “Since no theme was handed down in advance, my job was to arrive at a selection piece by piece, submission by submission, until I saw the show take shape from what artists are concerned about and refracting through their work right now. I encountered a gnawing disquiet, an insistence on making things by hand, an interest in place, and the use of materiality and process as metaphor…” Read the rest of my Juror’s Statement here.
Last Chance: If you haven’t had a chance to stop by already, head to Morgan Lehman to see the big “Twenty by Sixteen” exhibition, which is only on view through Friday, July 31. Sixty artists each have two 20 x 16-inch pieces in the show, hung in a grid formation. Look for my paintings in the gallery’s new space across the hall from the original space. Location: 526 West 26th Street, Suite 410 New York, NY / Tues - Sat, 11-6.
That’s it for this month. Thanks for reading. See you in September, when, in addition to painting, I’ll be mentoring a Canopy 2.0 cohort, hosting Two Coats of Paint Resident Artist Scott Wolniak from the University of Chicago, and heading back to Golden to help select the 2027 residents.
Enjoy the remaining dog days –
Sharon
Note: For more info and images of work, please visit www.sharonlbutler.com. Follow me on Instagram @sharon_butler
Great to read this news! Have fun in New Berlin!