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Suburban artists paint the big city

Behind the Scenes

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January 12, 2012|By Robert Knox

Among the works in Bostonia exhibit at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset… (SOUTH SHORE ART CENTER )

Views of cityscape from Longfellow Bridge, traffic-filled Newbury Street, tall building against the sky, an old dock pile foregrounding the Charles River, and a close-up of an expired parking meter are among scores of paintings of city life in the “Bostonia’’ exhibit opening tomorrow evening at the South Shore Art Center.

“A lot of our artists look toward Boston,’’ the center’s Kaitelin Thurlow said. “Most of these pieces were painted on site.’’ The show’s eight painters are “gallery artists’’ with an ongoing relationship with the center.

Actively painting in her 80s, Ros Farbush of Hull painted a view of Fenway Park. Dianne Panarelli Miller of Abington “goes into Boston and puts her $2 in quarters in a meter and paints at the Public Gardens,’’ Thurlow said. Anne Heywood of East Bridgewater honed in on an expired parking meter and produced a large pastel.

Not too surprisingly, Heywood’s “Expired Meter’’ has a story behind it.

“It stems from a parking meter incident. That has probably happened to a lot of people,’’ Heywood said, recalling her search for a parking space while shopping for art supplies. “I backed into a space. It was winter. It was a tiny-teeny space.’’

Pleased she had managed to squeeze into the space, she paid little attention to having parked against the flow of traffic. “I got a ticket because it was facing the wrong way. . . . I had to paint it to get it out of my system,’’ Heywood said.

The ticket made her feel bad, but her painting made her feel good.

“What I try to do is to focus on Boston’s diversity,’’ Heywood said. “Boston’s not real big like New York, but it’s not small. I think it fosters strong ties between the neighborhoods, the commuters, there are lots of students, the medical center, and people just go in to have fun. Even as a visitor you get a flavor of that.’’ It’s an idea she expresses in her painting “Ties,’’ centered on a tied-together piling in the Charles while buildings old and new fill the frame.

Heywood paints in pastels, going through a three-stage process to get to the final product.

“I take a lot of photos and go back to my studio. I make quick black and white sketches, I change things. That’s where the creativity comes in,’’ she said. “Then I do the painting.’’

Stephen Boczanowski’s painting “Newbury Street’’ is a scene of one of the city’s busiest streets, its colorful townhouse-style buildings overlooking a roadway clogged with traffic and the reality of change.

“I like to go into Boston and check out some of the traditional street scenes not taken over by Starbucks, or whatever,’’ the Norwell painter said. “It’s a good spot to go and find something interesting.’’