MARY POLLAK
Night Business
With the Newburyport Art Association as our resource, we contacted local artists to explore their level of interest in exhibiting their work here in the Studio. We knew we would be much happier with art in our midst! We were all extremely pleased when Mary Pollak expressed an interest and agreed to hang nine of her works in our new Studio. Mary’s work will be on display through the middle of January. A description of Mary’s work is encapsulated in her Artist’s Statement:
“Mary Pollak has spent much of her life developing her monotype process through related interests. As an art teacher, clay artist, weaver, painter, photographer and collector, the accumulation of skills and things fits perfectly into the role of printmaker. She creates her prints with oil paint using a Takach press on Rives BFK rag paper. A variety of materials are used, including brayers to apply the paint, string, original stencils, fabric, etc. to create shape and texture. Other mediums are often added to the print, including transfer techniques and chine colle’. Layering color and image are an integral part of Mary’s style.”
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AVERILL C. HAINES
Everbody's Pond
Averill finds inspiration for her art in the nature that surrounds us all—her inspiration dates back to her early childhood years spent in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Averill writes, “My three sisters and I reveled in all sorts of outdoor activities with our neighborhood friends. We spent countless hours building tree houses, toboggan runs, grass huts, and Tom Sawyer rafts...I readily developed a passion for the splendor and symmetry of nature...it was the unbridled freedom to explore all of these sensory experiences so early in my life that gave me the impetus to become an artist.”
Following many years at Boston University as Assistant Athletics Director and Compliance Coordinator, she has retired in our coastal community of Newburyport allowing her more time to dedicate to her art. She is a member of the Newburyport Art Association and the Seacoast Art Association in Exeter, NH and keeps a full schedule with association shows, area art exhibits, and with time in her studio, as well as local volunteer work. Please feel free to visit Averill’s website at www.averillsartistry.com or contact her at ahaines@averillsartistry.com.
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MARY CONLAN
Nasturtium and Shell
“We drew seven, two inch squares on paper and penciled in progressively equal sections from white to black. I bought a piece of heavy flat French archival rag paper, sharpened my selection of pencils from 7H to 4B or 5B, penciled in the seven squares according to direction...The next week after forty hours of careful work and seeing some of the ten or twenty minute exercises by fellow students casually scribbled onto notebook paper minutes before class I knew I accomplished something important.” (Excerpt from Gray Scale) You may contact Mary at 1.978.465.5784.
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ROSALIE SIDOTI IACONO
The Gardener
Rosalie, a visual artist of Contemporary Impressionism, paints landscapes and figures she observes in familiar surroundings and settings. The simple motion or repose of figures and the transitory moments of shifting light in an uncomplicated situation provide the inspiration for creative innovation.
“For me, painting is a fusion of recollections and sketches. I want to represent the divergence of nature’s tranquility and force by synthesizing memories and photographs with my observations. Studio painting becomes more than an enlarged version of a photograph or field study. It acts as a starting place which provides me the motivation to explore color, to create atmosphere and to remind the viewer of life’s undemanding and ephemeral pleasures. Thus, my paintings lead to creative invention as they start to sever the connection from their place of origin and begin to exist as their own entity.”
Rosalie Sidoti earned BFA and MA degrees. After graduate school, she continued her education at Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Fine Arts, summer exchange program. She views education as a way of sharing with the art community what has been so generously given to her by her mentors over the years. Currently, she is a Supervisor of graduate students for Tufts University; in affiliation with The School of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. Contact information: www.rosaliesidoti.com, jriacono@comcast.net, 1.978.270.1585
