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"Ocean Rocks VI" About the artist: Joyce McJilton Dwyer Discovering What’s Next® invites you to enjoy our February Discover Balance Artist Over 50 exhibition of watercolor paintings by Joyce McJilton Dwyer, HUB, 3rd floor, Newton Free Library.
“I love to wake up in the morning and I love to go to work and I love learning what's inside me in terms of seeing my paintings realize the visual ideas I choose.
Growing up on a small family dairy and crop farm in central Michigan hooked me, I later realized, into a love of landscape. The urge to draw and create was a strong thread through my life. I always really wanted to be a studio artist, majoring in art at Michigan State University, but couldn't see how I could earn a living in art if I wasn't going to teach art. That stumbling block lasted nearly 40 years. At one point I thought if I couldn't work in some area of art, it didn't make any difference what I did. So I was an office manager and administrative assistant for 20 years before I realized it did make a difference. I spent many years working at office jobs to bring in the money while doing art in my spare time. Now I have a “collage” of art-related jobs—five at present, all either “making” or teaching.
I started painting in watercolor in a community ed class, moved to New England and spent eight years at the DeCordova Museum School studying under Marjorie Glick and Ival Stratford Kovner.
I really love watercolor as well as painting outdoors. I tend to paint outside from late spring through very late fall. The rest of the year I finish up work started outside, but not completed, and paint in the studio from photos I've taken. I work in a smaller format outdoors, typically 8” x 10”, as I'm a slow painter and need to work as quickly as I can. My working quickly gives a quality to my brushwork that I like. My painting sizes vary from generous half-sheet size down to miniature original watercolors in a 1 1/2” x 2” size. This year I have been experimenting with the aceo format or playing card size of watercolors, 2 1/2” x 3 1/2”.”
For more information on Joyce’s works or to contact our artist,send email to info@discoveringwhatsnext.com. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Charles River at Elm Bank" About the artist: Dottie Guiffre
Discovering What’s Next™ invites you to our Discover Balance Artist Over 50 exhibition and opening reception of watercolor paintings by Dottie Guiffre, artist, landscape designer and former educator, Sunday, January 10, 1:00 – 3:00pm, HUB, 3rd floor, Newton Free Library. Meet Dottie, appreciate her beautiful art and understand how she is “following where the path leads me”:
“A few years ago, after a career in which I created and ran a school for children for 18 years, my life was in transition. My husband became ill, and in an effort to shift my energy in a new direction which better matched the circumstances of my life, I signed up for a watercolor workshop. I went with few expectations other than it might be “interesting”… and if it wasn’t, then I could stop and look elsewhere for novelty in my life. The learning curve was steep until I stepped away from “the specific plan” and let my instincts take over, adding what my imagination wanted the details to be.
As a child, my Native American grandmother taught me to appreciate the world around me. Having lost her hearing as a child who contracted measles, she taught herself to read lips and more than most, used her eyes and hands to engage and connect with others. She filled her silent world with activity shared with children and grandchildren. Her pleasure in exploration and making things was not lost on me. I have always felt drawn to creating and have had wonderful mentors show up in my life, at just the right moment, who encouraged my efforts to develop my skills and to find new uses for them. I also like to be good at what I do so I continue to reflect on what I have done as well as to explore new ways to improve. My exploration of watercolor painting falls into that category. Learning new skills has always activated a flow of energy for me, and the result is often an explosion of creativity.
I began to “play with techniques” to see what would happen. Could I create a quality, mood or character? I often take photos to capture fleeting images in nature that speak to my truest self. I began looking for images that might inspire my paintings. These have often become poems expressing what I felt when taking the photo. Typically landscapes, clouds, and water produce this profound sense of place for me…and a need to feel and remember it.”
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"Big Skies" About the artist: Renée Rubin "Celebrating My Love of Landscape in Watercolor and Mixed Media" My paintings are about a sense of place, the contrast of land against water, the lights and darks, the constantly changing drama of the sky. I visit marshes and shore from southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island to coastal Maine and Canada as well as places closer to home, such as the Arnold Arboretum, with its unique patterns of color and design. I do many sketches and watercolors on site and then, in my studio, distill what I have seen into my own interpretations. I want to convey my experience of the places I visit. My "partitioned landscapes" came about after I returned from a trip to Canada with a notebook filled with sketches. I decided to combine different scenes into a single paining, creating a "journey" for myself and the observer. I began teaching watercolor classes through the Newton Community Education program in 1992. I found teaching a rewarding and very challenging experience! In 1998 I began teaching privately and at the New Art Center in Newton. My work has been exhibited in many galleries in New England over the past twenty-five years. It is included in many corporate and private collections, among them, The Federal Reserve Bank, Fidelity Investments, Harvard Business School and NYNEX. Note: Visit Renee's website at www.reneerubin.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Line” Collage, 2007 In collaboration with the New Art Center, the Artists Over 55 series at the DWN Hub is currently exhibiting the work of collage and mixed media artist Ruth Segaloff. War is a common theme. The artist grew up in New Orleans in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era Communist “witch hunts” and during the violent birth of the civil rights movement. While she was in college, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated and protest against the war in Vietnam began, along with the federal government’s violent response. Ruth was influenced by all these traumatic events, and they are reflected in her art: collage and mixed media.
About the artist: Ruth Segaloff Three generations of Ruth Segaloff’s family have been storytellers and she has followed in this tradition. When she graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, she joined VISTA. Stationed on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in Idaho, she learned native crafts and traditions. After VISTA, Ruth earned a Master’s Degree in Social Work at Rutgers University, then moved to Boston in 1969. Ruth recently retired from a 40-year career in social work, during which storytelling was central to her practice. Listening to the experiences of her clients, Ruth enabled them to hear their own stories in a new way that highlighted their strengths. In retirement, Ruth became a volunteer mentor to high-risk adolescents referred by the juvenile court. Working at Medicine Wheel Productions, she developed The Medicine Shield Project, a therapeutic activity group for kids who had difficulty expressing their feelings. Gradually, over the past two years, the percentage of time she devotes to art has dramatically increased, while her social work practice of forty years has all but disappeared. Coinciding with her 65th birthday this year, Ruth learned that her juvenile court specialty was eliminated due to the Commonwealth’s fiscal crisis. Thus, almost there already, the transition to her life as a full-time artist has been smooth. Ruth’s current form of storytelling is collage and assemblage. With its many offerings in mixed media, the New Art Center has been an especially good resource: Ruth has studied with John Murray, Joan Asquith Shrier, and Carol Blackwell. She formalized her commitment to art two years ago when she created “Stories in Collage & Mixed Media.”
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