Kristy Cavaretta and Alicia Ethridge

December 4, 2026 - January 31, 2027 | Opening Reception / Meet the Artists: Friday, December 4 / 5 - 8pm

Kristy Cavaretta and Alicia Ethridge present a collaborative examination of grief, memory, and the wisdom of the natural world. Birds—symbols of passage, connection, and solace—take flight across Cavaretta’s serene woodblock prints and Ethridge’s layered oil and mixed-media paintings. Together with three-dimensional works and a participatory mural, they invite visitors to reflect, create, and engage with art as a communal, transformative experience.

Together alongside the exhibits of Forrest Elliot and Rebecca Klementovich, as well as Corwin Levi, the Gallery will be a rich, interactive space for reflection, play, and imaginative exploration, where visitors can navigate personal and collective experiences through art. From the soaring birds of memory to collaborative murals, from life paths reimagined through games to color as a language of emotion and connection, we'll celebrate human experience, creativity, and the power of participation.

For centuries, birds have been seen as messengers—symbols of meaning, transformation, and connection. In ancient Greece and Rome, augury and ornithomancy interpreted birds’ behaviors as signs from the divine. Though these practices have faded, the symbolic power of birds endures, carrying stories across time, culture, and spirit.

​Artists Kristy Cavaretta and Alicia Ethridge met as they emerged from the early years of motherhood, forming a creative bond grounded in mutual support, vulnerability, and shared growth. Both experienced the profound loss of their mothers during this time—a grief that revealed itself not just in sorrow, but in signs. Birds began to appear: as messengers, as memories, as moments of solace. These encounters became a language—intuitive, sacred, and deeply felt.

Kristy Cavaretta’s woodblock prints feature blue-toned, silhouetted birds hovering against textured fields of quiet color. Rooted in her Scandinavian heritage and inspired by Delft pottery, her restrained palette and minimal forms evoke serenity and memory. Each bird is a symbol—of presence, passage, and connection beyond the visible.

​Alicia Ethridge’s layered oil and mixed-media paintings explore threshold spaces: between waking and dreaming, grief and growth, earth and myth. Human figures lie still while birds hover or loom above, serving as omens, protectors, and witnesses. Her textured surfaces and symbolic imagery invite viewers into a visual mythology of transformation.

Collaborative works by the artists include a three-dimensional piece suspended in the air, as well as a participatory mural murmuration–– an opportunity for collective artmaking, resulting in a large-scale communal installation.

​This project honors the enduring power of intuition, the wisdom of the natural world, and the healing found in both art and connection. Through birds, the artists remind us: love does not disappear—it transforms, it returns, it soars.