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02/05/2020 07:50 AMOld Saybrook Town Hall’s Community Art Hallway will have its official opening on Wednesday, Feb. 12 at 11 a.m. But like many new endeavors, the project hit a temporary snag in late January, when Brushstrokes, the first group to exhibit its work in the space, found that the cables and hooks provided weren’t sufficient for the work they were prepared to hang.
The members who turned up to install their work were in good spirits, however, not seeming to mind having to return once the proper equipment was in place and grateful for the opportunity to exhibit at Town Hall.
The group started as Odyssey and grew out of art classes its members took with Noel Belton, an accomplished artist and Irish immigrant who’s since moved to Chicago.
“Noel was willing to arrange his schedule and set us up outside, en pleine air,” said Brushstrokes member Maureen Tarbox of East Haddam. “He would go from easel to easel” to critique their work.
The members were unsure how long ago it was that Odyssey began or evolved into Brushstrokes, but they believe the second group was established 10 or 12 years ago. It now meets in member Phyllis Bevington’s basement in Chester on Wednesdays in winter, painting outside whenever weather permits.
While the group’s techniques and styles differ, most seem to prefer landscapes to portraits.
“Some of us do oils and watercolors,” Tarbox said, “some paint with just palette knife, some paint with palette knife and brush—”
“—and any utensils that are necessary,” added Diane Aldi DePaola with a laugh.
She wasn’t joking, however: The Old Saybrook artist’s bio states that she’s been known to use Q-tips, rags, and kitchen utensils to create her work.
Many of the nine members have taken courses with other artists, as well, such as Bernard McTigue of Waterford; Nancy Tracy, who founded the Tracy Art Center in Old Saybrook and died in 2013; and Leif Nilsson of the Leif Nilsson Spring Street Studio and Gallery in Chester, who’s “been painting with only a palette knife for many years,” said DePaola.
The members exhibit their work together as well as individually and several have had work commissioned. In addition to the Acton Library, Brushstrokes has shown its work in Saybrook at Ashlawn Farm Coffee.
The art displayed in the Art Hallway will be for sale and members’ cards and bios will be available. Anyone interested in joining them is welcome to contact any of them, they said. Currently, all Brushstroke members are women, and all are retired, but the group is open to any local artist, DePaola said.
“We’re very open to anybody coming,” said Brenda Newbegin, who lives in Essex. “The more the merrier. We actually learn a lot when someone new comes.”
An artist who’s joined Brushstrokes recently “was giving us some new ideas,” Newbegin said. “We really don’t have an instructor anymore. So we’re kind of critiquing our own work. But she’s got a whole different idea because she’s been painting a lot longer and she’s actually taught classes.
“We love to have new people join us,” she said.
One of the joys of painting together is the artists’ different interpretations of the same subject, said DePaola.
“We all look at something and we want to paint it, but when you see those paintings hung together, you say, ‘They’re so different than mine,’” she said.
The Gallery Space
The idea of a Community Art Hallway was suggested three years ago by Old Saybrook resident Donna Perrotti Leake, according to an Economic Development Commission press release. The Old Saybrook Rotary Club and Eversource donated funds to help purchase equipment and establish the space.
Work by Brushstrokes will be on view in the Community Hallway through April. Applications to exhibit work from artists living in Old Saybrook and the lower Connecticut River area will be reviewed on a rolling basis and shows will be rotated every four months. Interested artists may contact Susan Beckman at 860-395-3139 or susan.beckman@oldsaybrookct.gov.