"Famous Artist" visits Gallery 54

Saturday was a red letter day of sorts for Gallery 54. Unfortunately, at the time we really didn't know it.

As is common practice at Gallery 54, Kathy Schneider and I were engaging visitors as they arrived and perused our gallery. As we interacted with Jamie Treadwell, and a few other visitors who were with him, we didn't realize we were speaking with an internationally respected artist.

In the few minutes that we spent with Mr. Treadwell and his friends he focused our discussion on a unique family reunion that was underway in Skaneateles. He and 58 others from around the world were in Skaneateles for what he called the Lee Descendants Reunion . . . descendants of one Seth Lee. We took enough information to try and interest a local newspaper in their interesting story before they departed for the next stop on their visit to Skaneateles.

We did learn that Jamie Treadwell was currently from London and others from throughout the US. And, the reunion included four generations ranging from ages18 months to 94 years of age. Most had not even known of each other until research traced their respective ancestries to Skaneateles. Kathy and I thought it might be an interesting story of one of our local papers.

After the group departed, one man returned to tell us, referring to Jamie, "He's too humble to tell you this himself, but Jamie is a well known and accomplished artist. Look him up."

We quickly Googled his name and the first reference to come up included a photo that was that of  the Jamie Treadwell who had been in our gallery moments earlier. We clicked on "about art" and discovered that we had missed an opportunity to introduce ourselves to an interesting artist in his own right. Take a look for yourselves... Jamie Treadwell.