Article from the The Toledo Blade, published July 3, 2026. Written by Sheila Howard

In Sylvania’s Hudson Gallery, the latest exhibition invites art lovers into a sense of warmth and nature.

New Summer Day brings together five contemporary artists whose pieces evoke a fresh summer atmosphere through finely crafted pieces.

“It’s fresh, it’s clear, it’s clean, it’s open, it’s some summer sort of imagery,” said Scott Hudson, gallery owner. “We’ve got some great woodcuts, some wonderful monotypes, and they just feel very summery.” 

While he curated the show from artists the gallery has represented for years, he emphasized that the work on view is entirely new.

Among those featured is artist Royce Deans, from Traverse City, Mich., whose layered monoprints of forests bring depth and motion to the gallery’s walls, complimenting the summer theme.
The artist prints on both sides of thin paper so color “bleeds through” and creates the sense that the piece “looks closer and looks further back,” giving each work real volume, Mr. Hudson said.

Since transitioning from painting to printmaking, Mr. Deans said he appreciates how the medium offers more creative possibilities.

“With most of them, I use about three different linoleum plates. I carve those shapes out, and then ink them. I run them through the press, put the plate and the paper in there, and I get the image,” he said of the intricate technique that produces detailed forest scenes.

He described the process as both demanding and a little bit magical.

“Printmaking just shows me so many more possibilities of the number of ways there are to solve a compositional challenge,” he said. “As artists we pretty much just give ourselves challenges and then figure out a way to solve it, and I just find so many more options for those solutions when I’m printmaking.”

Works such as Forest of Dreams, Rainbow Forest, and Peace on Earth build dense groups of trees from repeated silhouettes with subtle color shifts, printed on delicate Japanese paper. 
“The silhouettes are pretty anatomically correct, but they are kind of stylized silhouettes,” he said. “Some of the trees are printed multiple times, although they’re in different colors and different intensities of ink, they might look like a different tree, but they’re the same.”

The result, he said, can feel like movement or “like there’s a little breeze blowing through.” 
The artist draws inspiration from the trees that surround his studio on a 50-acre farm. He often carves plates based on particular trees he has studied and sketched, then layers those images to create forests that are abstract yet recognizably real.

Watching sap run out “like a faucet,” Mr. Deans said, from a newly tapped maple on the farm sparked a deeper awareness of the hidden root systems beneath the soil and helped inspire his newest forest print series.

The exhibit’s theme suits his work, as these pieces invite viewers to feel fully immersed in nature.
“The name of the theme kind of speaks to some hope for new and brighter. There’s lots to be discouraged about, perhaps, if you let yourself go that direction,” he said.
“This is like stepping back to a place or a time, maybe when you were a kid,” he said. “You're out of school, and all of a sudden, the world is bright and colorful, everything’s great, and we’re just in awe of nature.”

The exhibition runs through July 31 during regular Hudson Gallery hours, Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

All of the artwork will be available for purchase through Hudson Gallery.

Mr. Hudson sees the summer theme as a way to keep the show feeling fresh and inviting so that the work can naturally draw people in. “I just want people to be interested and come in, and then let the work do its job,” he said.

My 3rd chapbook of poetry, Then and Now is hot off the presses and is available for purchase. Then and Now is a collection of 18 poems that I think will inspire, entertain and hopefully make you smile.

This book will initially be available to the public on August 9th at The Nature of It All art sale at the Old Art Building in Leland. If you can't be at this event, they will be available at Bay Books in Suttons Bay, MI, my studio in Cedar, MI and from my website. Stay tuned for more locations.

The Nature of It All - A Summery Art Sale

It's time again for an art show in one of my most favorite places, The Old Art Building in Leland.

Along with the work of such wonderful artists as Angela Saxon, Anne Corlett and Rick Koehler, I will be showing new lino-monoprints and gouache landscapes.

Stop out Saturday or Sunday to say "Hi" and buy some art.

Saturday, August 9
11am-7pm

Sunday, August 10
11am-4pm

Old Art Building
111 S. Main Street
Leland, MI

Come out and say hi and see a new show of a collection of my work.

Thursday, August 7th
5-7pm

Arbor Gallery
6654 Western Avenue
Glen Arbor, MI