Ohio Valley Goodwill Recognizes Thunder-Sky Gallery for Hosting of Gallery Opening!

Curators Keith Banner and Bill Ross with Sharon Hannon.

It was a sunny December morning at the Thunder-Sky Gallery located in Northside, when Goodwill marketing team members, George Palmer and Sharon Hannon had the opportunity to officially present co-curators, Keith Banner and Bill Ross with a symbol of gratitude. The award  was given in recognition for the gallery’s sponsorship of ” The Goodwill Biennial” art show which took place from August through October 2015 and  featured handmade art donated to Goodwill  by previously undiscovered artists.

Curators Keith Banner and Bill Ross created the show as a homage to lost artists whose work would have gone unnoticed without an opportunity of this kind. ” The whole purpose of working with Goodwill is to treat the works we come across with respect and dignity, in order to find some kind of meaning/redemption in them that goes beyond kitsch and into another realm,” Thunder-Sky, Inc. Co-founder Keith Banner says. ” Plus titling the whole project after sometimes pretentious and sometimes contentious contemporary biennial art surveys is kind of a lark- poking fun at the art world, while also paying homage to artists who have been lost, consigned to donation bins.”

Raymond Thunder-Sky himself is another reason Thunder-Sky, Inc. partnered with Ohio Valley Goodwill. Thunder-Sky worked at Goodwill’s employment and training center for several years before he died, and often featured Goodwill in his drawings. At the end of the “Goodwill Biennial” art show, the Thunder-Sky Gallery presented the organization with a check representing 70% of the proceeds from the sale of the artwork. The remaining 30% goes to the artists that the Thunder-Sky Gallery represents.

Ohio Valley Goodwill is thankful to curators Banner and Ross for their hosting of the “Goodwill Biennial” art show and for the gallery’s generous donation to the organization’s mission of putting people with disabilities to work. “We could not be more pleased with the outcome of this year’s partnership with the Thunder-Sky Gallery,” said Sharon Hannon, Marketing Manager. “Our most sincere gratitude to both Keith and Bill for their wonderful support.”

Thunder-Sky, Inc. is a non-profit art gallery focusing on unconventional art, people and ideas. 4573 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, Ohio 45223. (513) 426-0477. www.raymondthundersky.org.