The LuigART Exhibit commemorated Women’s History Month with a female artist only gallery including more than 50 different artists.

Open during the month of March, and only on weekends, the exhibit showcased a variety of mixed-media arts including sculpture and acrylic on wood.

Curator of the event, retired gallerist and artist, Mary Rezny, said the event was created by the LuigART Women’s Collective, a group of women who gather monthly in the exhibit space.

“My goal as a curator was to include as many women, as many diverse styles, as many genres as I could,” Rezny said.

Rezny said she opened the application to adults in Fayette County and bordering counties.

Each artist could submit three pieces of work and Rezny would choose which artists’ work and which piece was shown in the exhibit.

“We got a really nice broad spectrum of media, of genres, of different styles, different techniques,” Rezny said. “It’s been really successful.”

LuigART exhibit co-owner and artist, Marco Logsdon, said he helped Rezny choose what work would be displayed in the exhibit. 

Logsdon said everything he does is in an artist’s view, as opposed to an everyday person’s view which helped in assisting Rezny.

“It was really just trying to show the diversity and the different ways that all these individual women approach art in different forms and whatever it means to them,” Logsdon said.

Although challenges were faced by the co-owner and curator, Rezny said the exhibit was a success. 

One of the featured artists, Constance Grayson, said the women’s art in the exhibit was “energizing,” saying she enjoyed seeing the different art created by different women.

“There’s just something that’s so exciting about mastering a technique or seeing a piece come together,” Grayson said. “If it never gets displayed, if it never becomes part of a collection, that’s OK, because most of the value is in just creating the art.”

Grayson said her piece, “Bold Blue Blossom,” symbolizes her idea of a flower, saying she does not look at pictures to get inspiration, but will instead “capture that flower in the shapes and movements of the color around the piece.”

Grayson said she encouraged women in this career to make art, saying it was fulfilling in and of itself.

Exhibit contributor Tresa Thompson O’Connor had an acrylic on-wood painting titled “Copse.”

O’Connor said she has been doing art her whole life and it is still a lot of work. Some art, like Graysons piece, could take nearly 20 hours to create, she said. 

“Not everybody is lucky enough to be able to be an artist throughout their lives because women typically have children to raise and jobs,” O’Connor said. “When all of that is done, then they have time to finally express their creative energy.”

O’Connor is a third-generation painter, saying she, her father and grandfather all used nature as inspiration for their pieces.

“I think women have to talk about how they want to be expressive and creative in their lives,” O’Connor said.

A group called Women at LuigART, O’Connor said, get to sit and talk about what inspires them, different shows in the area and what kind of work they do.

“Women talking with other women is a big part of what I think is important,” O’Connor said. “Communicating with each other about what we find inspiring and what we want to do with our lives.”