By TERESA WINCHESTER GILBERTSVILLE Eleven original pieces by the late collage artist Jane Evelynne Higgins-Main are up for bid in an online auction mounted through Lambrecht Auction Inc. to benefit Gilbertsville’s Village Improvement Society.

Higgins-Main graduated from Sidney High School in 1976. She went on to study fine arts at SUNY Oneonta and the University of Siena, Italy, graduating with a BA in 1980. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Southern California to pursue a career in graphics and typesetting. Higgins-Main relocated to Gilbertsville in 1995, where she opened the Hilton Bloom Art Studio in a carriage barn behind her house, at the corner of Hilton and Bloom streets. From the gallery’s 1998 opening through 2010, Higgins-Main mounted summer exhibits featuring local artists and held opening receptions at the gallery.

As a professional artist, Higgins-Main worked exclusively in the medium of collage. Her award-winning work, which reflected her interest in literature, history, and mythology, was widely exhibited, including four solo shows in regional galleries and two solo exhibits in New York City.

“Jane Higgins was an extraordinary collage artist. During her artistic career she created an impressive body of witty, satirical images that invited viewers to examine the world through her personal lens. A lens that was a blend of intelligence and humor. I have no doubt her work will become highly collectible,” said Nancy Callahan, professor of art emerita at SUNY Oneonta and a Gilbertsville resident.

“More went into Jane’s collage-making than meets the eye,” Callahan continued. “She really did it the old-school way—with scissors and wet glue, and making sure things dried flat. She always had hundreds of magazines that she went through to clip images that she liked. It was a lot about sorting, and trial and error, for her. She had to know exactly where she was going to put the images.

“The end product was actually surrealism through found images,” Callahan said.

Gilbertsville artist and writer Valerie Haynes also had high praise for Higgins-Main’s work.

“I always said that Jane was ‘the Gary Larson of collage,’ and I know the community, especially those who knew Jane, will appreciate her unmatched humor,” said Haynes, who, with Higgins-Main and others, formed the Illume Writers and Artists publishing cooperative in 2011.

Haynes donated the Higgins-Main collages for the auction.

Besides operating her art gallery, Higgins-Main was active in the community as a member of the Village Improvement Society, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Tianderah Chapter and GAGA (Gilbertsville Arts, Gilbertsville Artists). A lifelong Episcopalian, she attended Zion Episcopal Church in Morris.

Higgins-Main’s collages may be viewed at www.laibids.com. Bidding will cease at 7 p.m. on February 16. Winning bidders must pick up items between 9 a.m. and noon on February 18 at the Gilbert Block, 5 Commercial Street, Gilbertsville. Auction proceeds will go toward upkeep of the Gilbert Block, a neo-Tudor style strip of buildings designed by Boston architect Henry Forbes Bigelow and constructed between 1893 and 1895.

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