25 April 2019

NEWBURYPORT – On the first Thursday evening of each month, the Paula Estey Gallery welcomes the public to a free conversation and gathering focused on issues that impact the community locally and society overall.

The next First Thursday Salon on May 2 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the gallery, located at 3 Harris St., will feature art and activism about gun violence.

Tickets are not needed. Light refreshments will be served, and the talk begins at 7 p.m.

Newbury artist Carol Baum will speak about three series of recent abstract works on display at the gallery, titled “The Measure of Our Faith,” “Run,” and “Target.” Using subtle watercolors and repetitive forms, the art provokes thought about student deaths by gun violence.

“Carol’s work packs a punch and helps us to examine the situation in new ways,” said gallery owner Paula Estey.

Gregory Gibson, a 27-year gun control advocate, lost his son Galen in 1992, the random victim of a school shooting by a fellow student at Simon’s Rock College in Great Barrington.

Gibson wrote a critically acclaimed book, “Gone Boy: A Walkabout,” and was recently featured on National Public Radio’s “StoryCorps,” when he met 25 years later with the man who murdered his son. A five-minute video will be shown May 2 followed by his talk.

“Before Columbine or Sandy Hook or the heartbreaking spate of other school shootings that compel us to reassess our nation’s relationship with firearms, mental health and youth, there was Simon’s Rock. Gregory knows what it’s like for families to deal with sudden, unthinkable loss,” Estey said in a press release. “He helps to make sense in large and small ways of his son’s murder as he advocates for additional gun laws.”

According to Gibson, “Almost since that first moment, it has been my constant prayer to take this most awful of things that could possibly happen and turn it into something good, so that it’s not all just a pure waste and loss.”

For more information about the presenters, see Baum’s website at https://www.cjbaum.com and Gibson’s website at https://goneboy.com.

Gibson set up The Galen Gibson Fund, which contributes to local educational initiatives and to organizations working to serve victims of gun violence and to promote more stringent gun laws.

For more about the gallery, go to www.paulaesteygallery.com.
Estey can be reached at 978-376-4746 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

“Target,” one in a series of paintings by Carol Baum on school shootings.

Courtesy photo

—Gregory Gibson