Wendell Castle - The Arts and Cultural Council for Greater Rochester

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Own Shaping Her Space AXOM Gallery Director Margot Muto (left); 4-2-2, 8 Fall 2012 | AXOM Gallery’s Margot Muto an example of Susan Ferrari-Rowley’s powerful work on exhibit this fall at AXOM (bottom left); Fleeing Eve by Keith Howard, part of Eve’s Garden: The Lost Creation, exhibited at AXOM Gallery this September (bottom right).
“It was definitely not love at first sight,” says Robin Muto. It’s a lovely late summer evening. I’m sitting with Robin and Rick and their daughter, Margot Muto, in the offices of Robin’s design business, adjoining the new AXOM Gallery & Exhibition Space, which the Mutos just launched, with Margot at the helm. Robin is talking about the first time that she and Rick, her husband of many years, met—when they were both students at SUNY Oswego. “Rick looked just like Jerry Garcia,” she continues. “He had a lot of hair.” “Do you have a picture of that?” I ask. To my surprise, I learn that Rick, now an accomplished artist of many years most recently commissioned by Steinway & Sons to paint a commemorative piano unveiled in June in Beijing, was then a Russian studies major. Robin, now a design maven with a veritable Who’s Who of a client list from across the country, was the fine arts major. They met when Rick took pottery as an elective and wandered into Robin’s territory. After a lukewarm set of initial interactions—each found the other a bit distant—they ended up talking all night when jointly assigned to keep watch over the firing of the department’s salt kiln. Somewhere in there Rick brought Robin one of his Italian family’s specialties: a pickled eggplant sandwich. all Images couRtesy oF aXom galleRy & eXhIbItIon sPace By Sarah E. Lentini Rick and Robin Muto in 1975 at SUNY Oswego. The Mutos’ studios and gallery are housed on the second floor of a charming old red brick building—newly designated the Art and Design Building—on Anderson Avenue, above the Steve Carpenter Art Center, in the heart of the Neighborhood of the Arts, half a block from my office. As I take the stairs, I note the extensive beautiful blanched oak wainscotting—at once old and modern—which I learn Margot refinished. Once upstairs, I’m greeted by Robin and Margot and their dog, Jasper, a total ham of a Bluetick hound who befriends me immediately, and by a glowing pre-sunset sky that shows off the panoramic view afforded by oversized loft windows. The offices feel like an architect’s digs. Neighboring AXOM Gallery is clean and bright with blonde wood floors and high-end art work from the current exhibitor, Keith Howard, Margot’s former college professor. His pieces are beautifully stylized large nudes of a beguiling Eve, complete with apple in outstretched hand. The whole place feels like SoHo. Not surprisingly, Margot Muto is fluent in the language of art. While she tells me that she feels a stronger kinship with her mother’s artistic style and sensibility, the warm brown eyes that gaze into mine with energy and confidence bring her father to mind. I realize that I’ve never | Fall 2012 9
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Wendell Castle - The Arts and Cultural Council for Greater Rochester

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