Calendar of Art Shows, Trunk Shows, and Lectures
"The Birds and the Bees"
Group Show &
Ian Newbury in The Art Box
June 5th-June 30th
Opening Reception - June 14th, 5-7pm
Come and Celebrate Summer and Support The Westerly Land Trust!
M.J. BRUSH - M.J. discovered Ms. Mollie Hubbard in the biology Scientific Illustration Office while studying for her BFA at UCONN. This chance encounter created the opportunity to use her skills as an artist to illustrate the complexities of science. M.J. has worked as an illustrator for some 70 scientists, illustrating a broad and deep array of biological subjects for publication in books & scholarly journals.
M.J. Brush became a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators in 1974. (GNSI.ORG) She served as Vice President of the Guild from 1990 to 1994. M.J. was awarded the Guild’s Distinguished Service Award in 2001, the same year she helped start a New England chapter of the Guild. MJ has taught science illustration in the honors program at “UConn”. She also taught watercolor workshops at the Mystic Art Association as well as private workshops in the area.
After retiring from the University in 2000, she and her husband, Dr. Alan Brush, sailed their 33’ Cape Dory the length of the Eastern U.S., while working on a book describing the ecology of the coast & changes to the habitat over the past 300 years. (He is the writer she the illustrator.) Their book was published in 2018 by the Catesby Trust & can be ordered on-line from catesbytrust.org.
M.J. Brush became a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators in 1974. (GNSI.ORG) She served as Vice President of the Guild from 1990 to 1994. M.J. was awarded the Guild’s Distinguished Service Award in 2001, the same year she helped start a New England chapter of the Guild. MJ has taught science illustration in the honors program at “UConn”. She also taught watercolor workshops at the Mystic Art Association as well as private workshops in the area.
After retiring from the University in 2000, she and her husband, Dr. Alan Brush, sailed their 33’ Cape Dory the length of the Eastern U.S., while working on a book describing the ecology of the coast & changes to the habitat over the past 300 years. (He is the writer she the illustrator.) Their book was published in 2018 by the Catesby Trust & can be ordered on-line from catesbytrust.org.
Serena Bates - Over 40 years ago, Serena Bates started her journey of exploration and interpretation of the world around her through art. Beginning probably at the age of 8 or 9, she started with pencil and paper and went on to study traditional figure painting and anatomy at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Over the years she has explored many mediums including charcoal, pastel, oil and acrylic paint to name a few, but when she discovered clay, she went over to the "Dark Side" as she likes to say. She had finally found her soul mate and companion saying, "When you find a material that you can work with tirelessly for hours and think minutes have passed, and your excitement still bubbles over when you leave the studio for the day, you have found home." The artist describes herself as a story teller with an affinity for portraits and animals. "Life’s stories plant seeds in my mind, take shape in my soul, and are born through my sculptures."
Over the years she has explored many mediums including charcoal, pastel, oil and acrylic paint to name a few, but when she discovered clay, she went over to the "Dark Side" as she likes to say. She had finally found her soul mate and companion saying, "When you find a material that you can work with tirelessly for hours and think minutes have passed, and your excitement still bubbles over when you leave the studio for the day, you have found home." The artist describes herself as a story teller with an affinity for portraits and animals. "Life’s stories plant seeds in my mind, take shape in my soul, and are born through my sculptures."
Lyman Goff is an Architect who lives and works in Watch Hill. He is also a watercolorist who paints with delicate clarity, both when home and traveling worldwide. He makes visual sense of the work around us and creates notebooks of far reaching adventures. His first book, "Travels with Lyman" was self-published in 2017 fall and a second one, " In and Around Watch Hill" was released in 2018. Lyman sees the light and the best aspects of his surroundings. He shared is vision with us through beautiful watercolors.
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Olga Goff has the genuine joy of the natural world imbedded in her soul which she shares with us through painting. An avid gardener, world-traveler with her husband Lyman, Out Back hiker, pet lover, walker, mother, grand-mother, she is the hub and creative leader in her family. Over the years she has been involved in many creative pursuits, Sailor Valentines, Decorative Painting, Nantucket Baskets, Shaker Baskets, Rug Hooking and Knitting, and more recently I have turned to painting in both oils and acrylics. Enjoying my workshop painting groups directed by Erica Lindberg Gourd of Stonington.
Izzy Goff - After retiring from a 20 year marketing and advertising career, Izzy questioned "what will I do now?" and her best answer was ART! She has taken many painting classes in oil, watercolor and even decoupage, and loves it all, particularly, trying to "really see" and create. She believes authentic art comes from your heart and soul and that everyone is an artist if they learn to be open. A competent artist needs lots of technique, practice and experience to create something to which the artist and the audience responds. Plein-air painting is the best, but, her iPhone holds onto landscapes that she wants to paint over time. Learning how to use a camera is very important to an artist as well as drawing.
Rick Kollmeyer was born in Alaska but grew up in Groton, CT. He graduated from the University of Connecticut and moved to Massachusetts for a tech job at Apple in the 1980s. Rick a natural observer and entrepreneur then founded three tech businesses in the Bay State: The Support Group, Blue Edge Data Solutions, and most recently, Direxxis, a marketing automation company that grew to 80 employees and was acquired by Broadridge Financial Services in 2015. The Kollmeyers then left Boston for this area to enjoy new business and creative ventures. Rick currently co-owns specialty retail and design shop, Adore, in Mystic CT with his wife Deb and is an avid Nature Photographer.
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Erica Lindberg loves color, design and painting. She adores teaching others to be comfortable with their own creative visions because it can feel so awkward to begin. After a marketing business career in NY she now teaches painting and design in Stonington. She likes to help students access their own creativity, to inspire joy through mastery of composition in many art forms particularly painting and digital mixed media. After the painting is complete it is fun to digitally continue to apply the art to products. Photoshop, is the digital tool to make patterns and applying those patterns to products, is what interests her most now in her own work.
Rebecca Woodward ‘Becky’- A dentist, mother and wife. Always looking for the beauty around us - never without a camera. Capturing the world through the lens or recreating it through the medium of watercolor on paper. Minoring in Art at Westbrook and Bates college discovering that watercolor was the medium that drew people to her art. People and light are found in the majority of her watercolors where landscapes are the theme in her photography. Now bringing the love of watercolor without the fear of the medium to her students at Avondale arts.
J. Susan Cole Stone - Susan attended Paier School of Art in Hamden, Connecticut, majoring in illustration and fine art. She has also taken various classes at Rhode Island School of Design and has been a working artist since 1975. Her interest in rendering birds, particularly waterfowl, was sparked by her first art-related job illustrating a weekly column “Wings ‘N’ Things” for the Waterbury Republican newspaper in Connecticut. Soon to follow was Birds of Connecticut Salt Marshes, published by the Arboretum at Connecticut College. Since then she has illustrated many more books and scientific journals, worked as a graphic artist and illustrator and exhibited in galleries including the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, Noah’s Art at Noah’s Restaurant in Stonington, Connecticut, Hartford Fine Art and Framing in East Hartford, Connecticut and Picture This Gallery in Westport, Connecticut.
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Barbara Ginsberg - Barbara is a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and member of the Mystic Garden Club. She is the most beautiful gardener and painter taking her time to balance colors to create soft and distinct oil paintings mostly from nature.
Spike Lobdell - Spike founded, NESS community based sailing and marine biology educational program in 2004, after a career in Finance. ‘Sailing & Science’ theme is unique in teaching life skills. Over 8,500 students of all ages will participate in 2019. Scholarships provided to approximately 56% to make program available to all. Now operates in 10 locations in New England. Named US Sailing's Outstanding Organizational Leader in 2017. Recipient of the National Recreational Foundation's Crawford Award (2016) to denote the individual who has done the most to advance the lives of inner city youth through athletics. Spike, in his spare time, has taken up oil painting focusing on the beauty of the sea and the natural world around us.
Ian Newbury
"Sunlight and Shadow"
Ian Newbury - Ian Newbury first tried his hand at watercolor 30 years ago in the Spring of 1989, inspired by impressions of Europe speeding past the windows of fast-moving trains. After stopping in Florence the desire to make some sketches led him into a supply store. He picked out the most basic of materials, shelling out a few days worth of his strict $30/day budget. His style has evolved more so by trial-and-error than guided instruction, learning primarily by observing the work of painters he admires. He held his first show at Noah's in Stonington, since then he has exhibited regularly in local and regional galleries, outdoor art shows and in solo exhibitions. For many years he maintained a studio in downtown Westerly, he now works from a studio in his home. He has built a strong local following, and a number of his paintings have found their way into collections well outside the local area, something he never imagined that first day sketching in a garden in Italy.
Annie Wildey &
Holly Wach in the Art Box
July 1st -July 31st
Opening Reception July 12th, 5-7pm
Annie Wildey is a British artist with a Stonington studio in the Velvet Mill. She is known for her large expressive oil paintings of waves. Most of her paintings are created in the studio, but she has a knack of translating the experience of being at the shore into her work. She interprets the smells, feelings, energy and movement of waves. She is an award winning artist, and received her MFA from the New York Academy Art. Her work has been exhibited nationally and international in museums, and galleries. Most notably, The National Museum of China, the Hecksher Museum, LI, Southampton Art Center and the Mall Galleries London.
Holly Wach is a fine artist working and living in Rhode Island. She received her BFA from the University of North Florida and her MFA from New York Academy of Art. She believes that nature provides us with a constant reminder to slow down in a modern world teeming with distractions.
In her youngest years, she made friends with bugs, frogs, crabs, snails, slugs. Their personalities, design, and beauty still provide endless curiosity. The more she draws and paints the creatures of nature, the more of themselves they reveal to her. She shares these wonders with you in her art.
Birds have become her most recent muse. Through watching and painting them, she is learning and discovering so much about these magical creatures.
In her youngest years, she made friends with bugs, frogs, crabs, snails, slugs. Their personalities, design, and beauty still provide endless curiosity. The more she draws and paints the creatures of nature, the more of themselves they reveal to her. She shares these wonders with you in her art.
Birds have become her most recent muse. Through watching and painting them, she is learning and discovering so much about these magical creatures.
