artist Robin Yuran to show at Aija

By Andra Moss

Previous long-time Norfolk resident Robin Yuran will return to town for a creative visit on Nov. 30. The occasion is an exhibit of her latest oil pastels at the Aija pop-up store in the Royal Arcanum Building. Yuran’s works will hang, and be available for purchase, through Dec. 22.

Yuran worked at the Norfolk Library for 17 years and lived here most of her life. She started as a library volunteer in 1995 and left as co-director in 2012. Sometime in those early years she met Bella Erder and her husband, Mark, when they brought their children to the library.

“Bella invited me to have shows when she had her Aija space upstairs at the Arcanum,” Yuran recalls. “I also had a show in 2015 when she was in the current Berkshire Store space.”

Yuran describes her new work as “impressionist.” The pieces range from minis (basket gifts for the holidays) to larger canvases. “Primarily, my show is all autumn—that’s my season,” she says. “The colors are very vibrant.” She says she finds inspiration in photographs that friends send her or that she takes herself—or even in views from her porch studio in Middletown.

Yuran has titled the show “Fogbottom Vale” to accompany a piece that her daughter, Castle, a published poet, is writing and that will be integrated into the exhibit. Yuran admits that she, too, was once inspired to write poetry, but that “after a while I picked up a brush instead.”

The opening reception for the exhibit will be held at Aija on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, from 3 to 5 p.m.