Major at Williams: Art History and Studio Art

 

My early forays in art were almost entirely in black and white, drawing and sketching. Much of my time at Williams was spent in the printmaking studio where I labored over detailed etching plates, in an effort to meet the exacting standards of Professor Thomas Krens. A semester on exchange at Wellesley during junior year allowed a brief escape, and an opportunity to learn the basics of painting amid an explosion of acrylic color.  I renewed my interest in fast-drying acrylics when my children were little, and I was looking for an easily accessible art outlet that would evade the curious reach of tiny fingers. Some years later, feeling that I couldn’t call myself a real painter unless I’d at least TRIED oils, I happily dove into the fragrant world of linseed oil, turpentine, and rich, Winsor & Newton colors. My subject matter runs mainly toward landscape and still life -  the farms and fields of Connecticut, the sandy shores of Rhode Island, and now, since a relocation in 2007, the natural beauty of Nova Scotia’s South Shore, its rocky coastline, sparkling waters, and luminous, often dramatic, skies.  My husband, musician Paul Halley, and I live near Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia.