Long Island Native Returns To Her Artistic Roots With New Bridgehampton Gallery

After Bonnie Edwards scoops up her son, Chase, from the Bridgehampton School, she will occasionally bring him to her new gallery on Main Street for an afternoon visit.It’s not long after walking through the light-saturated entry that he finds himself transfixed by a piece of art, standing in front of a canvas or sculpture with a lot to say.

“Mommy, I see something in that,” he’ll report, before rattling off his initial observations and then retreating quietly into his thoughts.

From a distance, Ms. Edwards watches her 8-year-old son’s mind churn inside the gallery named for him—Chase Edwards Fine Art, which will make its grand opening on Saturday, May 3.

If only her husband, Michael, could see him now.

On December 11, 2011, Mr. Edwards—a “Green Beret” during Desert Storm turned art aficionado and gallery owner—died in his sleep from a heart attack at age 48, leaving his young family and a vision for their future devastated.

“It took me a really long time to come back into this business because this is our dream,” Ms. Edwards said during a recent interview at the gallery. “This was our life. So I owe it to him. I got very emotional doing this because I thought, ‘Is this something I should do without him? Should I go forward?’ He taught me what I know today in this business.”

In the 1990s, the couple turned their love of art, and one another, into five galleries. They started from nothing and had a great run, weaving a family of artists under their roofs—from Laguna Beach and Palm Desert in California to Maui, Hawaii; Nantucket, Massachusetts; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

They sought out resort destinations, relaxed buyers and active markets. They even helped start the Laguna Beach First Thursdays Art Walk.

Then, the recession hit. For her industry, it was September 11, 2001. And the first things to go were the affordable luxuries, she said: the boats, the expensive cars and the collectible art.

“Ten years is enough, don’t you think?” she said. “I’m coming out. So is the art.”

She grinned and continued, ”You don’t even know what I’m gonna do to you people.”

The Oyster Bay native has returned to her Long Island roots, she said, by last month opening a contemporary art gallery that moves away from a traditionally stark, sterile, museum-like atmosphere. Her white walls are exploding with color, sculpture and canvas in a family-friendly atmosphere.

In the future, she will even encourage her visitors to touch some of the mounted installations. In the meantime, she is challenging her artists—who range from local legends to strong emerging voices from around the country—to take risks, re-create themselves and compose spirited, powerful, uplifting pieces.

“My passion lies in the artists themselves,” Ms. Edwards said. “I think they are the most amazing people on the planet. And they’re so diverse. They bring and they change the eras. They are responsible for changing our life cycle. Artists.”

The current exhibition, “Spring Awakening,” features seven artists, including Janet Jennings of Amagansett and Nils Bruun, who spends countless hours in his Springs studio doing one thing: folding single sheets of paper.

And the result is incredible, Ms. Edwards said.

“He’s fascinated with the fold,” she explained. “He worked for the Apollo, finding little ways of making the things that astronauts needed up there in small places. That he can do a fold like that with one piece of paper …”

She trailed off and walked over to his section of the gallery, gesturing to his paper sculptures. “That’s his depiction of Gardiner’s Bay,” she continued. “He lives out there in a glass house, overlooking the bay. And those are his waves he sees, all day long, at different dimensions. Artists fascinate me.”

When her husband was alive, he fascinated the artists, she said. He was a “massive man, a militant who loved this business,” she said. The artists would often stay at their home and paint.

It was her happy family, she said, before she and her husband created their own.

And she and Chase had to say goodbye to a part of it.

“It was Christmastime. On my birthday,” she said. “I lost him.”

But one day, as she was walking down Main Street in Bridgehampton, she found herself stopped alongside an empty storefront with a “For Rent” sign in the window. She felt an overwhelming urge to walk through the door.

“He’s here,” she said, looking around the gallery. “I, kind of, talk to him. ’Do you think this is okay?’ Oh my God, he’s rolling in his grave. He’s probably sitting right there.”

Ms. Edwards gestured to a bench in front of Carla Goldberg’s “Ripple Water Series,” where Chase often sits when he visits the gallery after school.

This is their new journey, she said. Still together. As a family.

Chase Edwards Fine Arts will host its grand opening on Saturday, May 3, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Bridgehampton gallery. Admission is free. For more information, call 604-2204 or visit chaseedwardsgallery.com.