24Jun/100
My Show at AS220′s Main Gallery – Providence RI
Well, now that the show is almost over (I will be breaking it down tomorrow 6/26 at 5pm) I am posting some of the photos that were in with some extras that didn't quite fit. It's been a great experience after so many years of focusing on editorial and portrait photography to show the photos I do for myself. It made me realize how much more I want to go in that direction and the positive reaction to my first "show" in almost 30 years has given me the confidence to do so. Please click on the link to the photography page and hit the link to AS220 show to view the gallery.
Fishing village of Galilee in Narragansett RI
All prints are available for purchase in a variety of finishes and sizes. Please contact me if you see anything you like.
24Jan/100
Welcome to My World
Please bear with me as I change over my old website to this one. It is a big learning curve for me and I still finding out how to navigate and set it up.
21Dec/092
Serena Bates in SO Rhode Island Magazine
Sculptor Serena Bates says that she learns something from each piece and then moves on. Maybe the greatest lesson she learned was early in her career when she created a 400 lb sculpture of a seal in her basement. “It was like building a boat in your basement” she said laughing, “how do you get it out?” In her case she spent a lot of money on pizza and beer for her husband and his friends each time they had to move it for a show. Luckily, the seal has found a permanent home at the Pleasant View Restaurant in Westerly. Lesson learned. Now she's careful not to build anything bigger than herself unless it is for a commission.
Bates, of Westerly, was accepted to Brown and RISD but as one of three daughters of a widow the money for that path was not there. She first attended business school but soon realized how stifling it would be not to be able to express her creative side. While working, she attended Lyme Academy of Fine Arts and sampled many mediums. During her first sculpting class she thought it was way too much work and stuck to painting. Now she says “Painting, although I enjoy it, always felt like work. I can lose myself in sculpting and I found it is what I was meant to do.” She feels that it is a more natural process for her as she is a 3D thinker.
After graduating she went to work in a foundry in Pawtucket and learned more about mold making, problem solving and “what not to do”. With that experience under her belt Bates set out determined to be the best she can be on each and every piece. Today she creates sculpture in bronze, resin, plaster and even aluminum. She has pieces made of copper salvaged from the roof of an old mill in Noank, CT with every bit of history behind them. Passionate about capturing real life moments and personalities, Bates has produced plaques and busts as memorials, mixed the ashes of deceased pets into their permanent likenesses and had created bronze reliefs of animals from photographs. Along the way she has received numerous awards and is represented by the Courtyard Gallery in Mystic, CT. Her work can also be seen at the Artist's Cooperative Gallery of Westerly.
Learning to make her work a priority was another lesson for Bates. She keeps the books for the family business, Pete's Grocery and Deli, as well as attending to her 13 year old “karate” son. After working from home and close to home, Bates' studio is now located in the Noank Foundry in Ct. That bit of separation allows her to lose herself in the medium that she loves.
For more information visit www.serenabates.com or email the artist at serenabates@verizon.net or call her at 401-932-9775
21Dec/090
Betsey Rice in SO Rhode Island Magazine
All artists take inspirations from their surroundings and Betsey Rice is no exception. Having grown up in coastal areas she spent much of her life on the beach, exploring tidal pools, marshes and the inherent creatures. “Sealife really speaks to me” she said, “it’s fascinating.” For the past dozen years Rice has been creating oversized versions of the variety of coastal life that mother nature has to offer. “It’s so easy to step on shells on the beach and overlook their beautiful details” she said, “I magnify those details and try to faithfully recreate the natural colors.” Living in Quonochontaug has given Rice a plethora of intriguing specimens to study.
Betsey Rice grew up drawing and painting. Knowing she wanted to stay in an artistic field, she attended Green Mountain College in Vermont to study advertising design. It was on a break after college, while visiting an aunt and uncle in Georgia, that she discovered her true passion. “I went south to spend a few months with relatives after graduating” she said, “My aunt and uncle were professional potters. I had never been exposed to that medium but I quickly fell in love.” She learned to create beautiful and functional plates, cups and bowls and returned to SO RI ready to be a potter.
While raising her family Rice started with home shows, taking orders for her ceramic housewares. She said to herself “I’ll try this or I’ll have to get a job.” She quickly became swamped with orders and eventually made some items for mail order catalogs. Those orders were soon keeping her too busy to explore her more artistic instincts. Rice decided to cut back production on the houseware line to special orders so that she could expand her vision. Sealife won out. Today those oversized versions of the creatures we so often take for granted grace galleries and her website www.betseyrice.com. The beautiful ceramic and porcelin creatures command space on walls, tables and outside entryways. Rice also loves to create one of a kind pieces on commission, a dancing wall of stingrays among her latest. Visit her studio in “Quonnie” and collaborate on something special today.
You can contact Betsey Rice by email at: betsey@betseyrice.com
21Dec/090
Jan Doyle in SO Rhode Island Magazine
Fiber Artist Jan Doyle thinks way outside the box and she blames it on being left handed. “I think with the opposite side of my brain – the illogical side” she laughed. Doyle, of South Kingstown, was always attracted to textiles but had trouble figuring out if it was due to texture or color. Judging by her work, color wins hands down. Knitting and crocheting from a young age she somehow knew she would she would end up weaving. “I was always fascinated with each individual thread” she said, “once you understand the thread you understand the cloth.”
After moving from hand needle work to machine knitting Doyle started weaving classes in 1990. She soon proved to be too out of the box for the traditional folk art. “I was referred to as the cuckoo in the weaver's class nest” she laughed. Chafing at the rules for formatting designs on graph paper before starting, Doyle just got started knowing that she could see 14 yards ahead to where the colors needed to be. Four years ago she gave up buying colored yarn altogether. Today she buys only white yarn and dyes it herself to achieve the colors that she truly wants.
She refers to her art pieces as neo-textiles; somewhere between clothing and costume. “I would love to see people become enamored of wearing something special, something that transports them to a different place.” Doyle's art pieces do invoke a feeling of ancient high priestesses and royals wearing ceremonial garb yet her simpler jackets and shawls are eminently wearable for everyday use. And then there is the 22 foot dinosaur that Doyle and her husband Steve collaborated on. He built the aluminum armature and she wove the covering fabric. Today it is housed at the Matunuck Elementary School.
Doyle, who jokingly refers to her business as CEA, or can't eat accolades, also produces mainstream items such as scarves and table linens but with that dazzling colorful touch. One new venture is to weave at weddings, having the guests choose the threads to add throughout the celebration and present the couple with a finished table linen at the end of the evening for a truly personalized gift.
She is an adjunct professor of weaving at URI, teaches at Slater Mill in Pawtucket and gives private lessons in her studio, Swords of Vavlkyrie. Yes she knows it is misspelled but vav means weaving in Swedish, and the Scandinavian style of double pick up weaving is her favorite. It's that thinking outside the box thing again.
Contact Jan Doyle at vavlkyrie@cox.net or call 401-742-0284 . You can view her favorite piece, “Queen Anaphylactic ” by visiting www.projo.com>lifebeat>art>view artist by name>Doyle, Jan
21Dec/090
Kendra Bidwell Ferreira in SO Rhode Island Magazine
At the tender age of 5, Kendra Bidwell Ferreira announced to her mother her intention to be an art teacher when she grew up. True to her word, Ferreira graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts and a minor in printmaking. Forgoing teaching at first, she concentrated on graphic design and worked for newspapers and printing companies. In 1996 she made the leap to pursue her art work full time and enjoy raising her three sons. Although Ferreira works in watercolor, pastels and oils, her favorite medium is colored pencil.
The precise points of the pencils allow Ferreira to render astonishing detail in her work while other techniques and her amazing ability to create light give the finished drawings a painted feel. She starts many of her pieces outdoors, finishing in the studio by way of a photograph. Ferreira, a signature member of the Colored Pencil Society of America and President of the North East chapter, explains that because the pencil process is so slow the light changes too rapidly, even while working on still life in the studio. Drawn to the natural beauty in Rhode Island she is fond of the organic subjects of beach, shells and rocks. In the studio fruit and food come deliciously alive on the textured papers or Gesso board that she favors. Just viewing her sold out candy apple series (see her website) conjures up anticipation of sticky hands and faces. Along with landscapes and scenics, Ferreira is concentrating on smaller slices of scenes such as her current project of the rock, shell and seaweed tangles found on the local beaches. One such piece, Flotsam & Jetsam, was accepted for a juried show at the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club in New York City this month.
Ferreira is a member and exhibiting artist of the Spring Bull Gallery in Newport and also takes on commissions. There are only about 80 artists in the North East who work in colored pencil making it one of the rarer mediums. Now teaching adult and children's classes at her studio, Beach Studios, in Middletown as well as through community programs, Ferriera has fulfilled the dream of that 5 year old little girl.
For more information on classes or to view more of her work, visit www.kjfdesign.com or call Ferriera at 401-682-1915
21Dec/090
Artist Cynthia Blair in SO Rhode Island Magazine
Jamestown artist Cynthia Blair's pastel work has the unique quality of being realistic and ethereal all at once. Viewing the pieces, especially the ones that include water, you get the feeling that if you touched the painting a ripple would appear that you would be able to step through and become part of the scene.
Blair loves the vivid colors and textures that she is able to conjure from the oil pastels. “I use very little fixative on my finished work so as not to muddy the colors” said Blair. “Because pastels are so easily smudged, the originals must be framed with glass.” Fortunately, the colors transfer well to print and Blair has started to print onto canvas, providing a new way to showcase her work.
Blair discovered RI when she arrived to attend RISD. Having grown up in a small, coastal area on Long Island she felt very much at home in Jamestown and decided to stay. A vibrant, curious person with diverse interests, Blair sampled a wide range of art styles and media before graduating with an illustration degree. Over the years some teachers tried to rein her in by telling her to focus on just one genre but she having too much fun to be corralled. “All of my experiences ultimately end up forming the whole of each work” she said.
Blair does illustration work such as logos, theater posters and murals but since picking up the pastels in 2002 she has been happily creating a body of work that evokes the small coastal town “feel” of both her hometown and her current home. Along the way she also returned to RISD for classes in website design and other art related computer programs. She brings her design skills to the websites she creates and especially likess to help other artists by creating sites that reflect their style and craft while promoting their work. Blair doesn't teach, but she loves to mentor younger artists and connect with artists of all ages to share ideas and solve problems.
Her latest project, stunning charcoal portraits of musicians, began as a fun way to help her daughter learn to draw. Being music lovers they decided to attend concerts and give the originals to the bands. In doing so Blair found that many musicians have charities they support so now donates originals and the proceeds from limited prints to the specified charity. She often donates finished pieces or offers of pet or human portraits to local charities as well. “I'm thrilled that some of my work is out there doing good things” said Blair.
View more work at www.cbastudio.com or www.cynthiablair.com or contact the artist at cblair7@gmail.com or 401-560-0030. You can also see her work at The Schock Gallery, 47 Conancious Rd. Jamestown.
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