Stop in Richard Boyd Art Gallery during the month of September to see ‘From a Woman’s Perspective’ an annual group exhibition of original paintings created by women from their point of view. Creating visual art gives women another voice, a way to express their true feelings about daily life and the world around them. It’s a means of relaxation and a way to cope with issues of the day. Drawn from the gallery’s inventory of original works, this multi-generational exhibition includes a selection of over 25 paintings created by eight accomplished women: Amy Bickford, Patricia Chandler, Carrin Culotta, Jane Herbert, Scarlet Kinney, Jen Pagnini, Felicity Sidwell, and Susan Tan. Although each artist has her own style, technique, and approach to creating art, they are joined by a passion - expressing themselves through art. About the Artists: Amy Bickford creates paintings in a traditional style portraying the timeless beauty and essence of Maine. A 1983 graduate of the Maine College of Art (MECA), her paintings depict the abundant and often random beauty she sees in scenes throughout the state of Maine, which is a constant source of inspiration for her work. Since graduating, Amy has worked in a variety of jobs, while continuing to create works of art for individual clients, corporations, and small businesses, including recreating the artworks on the ceiling of St. John’s Cathedral in Bangor, Maine. Her goal is to create visual art “that makes the viewer relate to it on a personal level.” Patricia Chandler is a fine and commercial artist, and educator whose career spans more than five decades. She received her BFA in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. After several years of working in the commercial field creating illustrations, Pat moved to Minnesota, where she renewed her interest in printmaking, moving back to Maine in 1971, later becoming an Adjunct Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Maine from 2005 to 2014. When asked about her creative process and style Pat said, “Maine’s more remote regions inspired much of my artwork to the same degree that its landscapes informed my early life. My creative process and production inevitably refer to my geographic roots. Throughout my 50 year career as a commercial and fine artist, I have retained an interest in various forms of realism persisting in contemporary 20th and 21st century art. My imagery, though based on landscape, evolved from realism into expressionism and abstraction. Part of that transition was due to more experimental attitudes toward tools and materials. Most of my more recent work is a combination of those styles; however, there remains a love of realism. It is all landscape of one variety or another. The variety of Maine’s natural beauty is sufficient for many lifetimes of an artist.” Carrin Culotta is a Biomedical Engineer in the medical imaging field by training, who has created visual art on and off again for many years. When asked what inspires her to create visual art, Carrin replied, “Having grown up in New England, I acquired an appreciation for its unique beauty and seasons. My adventurous spirit and love for untamed natural settings inspires me to paint on location in and around northern New England. I use art to channel my creative focus on natural subjects and to evoke the emotion I feel while experiencing it. Art allows me to immerse myself in the beauty of nature and the mystery of a moment in time.” Jane Herbert is a gifted fine and commercial artist living in Damariscotta, Maine, who has created visual art for more than four decades. Her paintings are a response to the ever changing colors, life and mood of coastal Maine. When asked about her painting style and education Herbert replied, “My painting style is born out of my experiences. I have an unstructured approach to art and life that serves me well. Instead of earning a formal education I gathered my brushes and toured Europe in a micro-bus, painting and learning as I went.” When asked what inspires her to paint, Jane replied, “There is wild beauty all around. My paintings are my response to the beauty of a particular place. I often drive past these scenes, catching nothing more than a flash of landscape in a break of roadside trees. Upon reflection, I wonder if this is my work- to witness changing light, rising mist, flowers blooming, a pair of mallards feeding, a muskrat swimming from one hummock to another - not a slower pace, but a timeless one. There is something sacred in the untamed life that endures amid the structures of progress. These paintings exhibit my respect for the ways of nature and personal affinity for tranquility and beauty, where I see it.” Scarlet Kinney is a life-long artist and writer, with a career spanning four decades, Scarlet lives quietly in a secluded setting in Downeast Maine’s coastal forest, not far from where she was born. She received a BA in Studio Art with a minor in Creative Writing from Goddard College, Plainfield, VT, completed Master’s level studio tutorials at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and earned an MA in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA. When asked about her career as an artist she replied, “My work is about pushing limits and relaxing preconceived ideas to express the inscrutable and ineffable energies that speak to me through the mythic and shamanic imagery that comes to me in dreams and visions. It is also very much about the process of painting itself; about creating the thickness, textures, interplays of color, light, shadow and line; or creating bold, rich strokes of paint on the canvas as I try to find my way towards expressing the mythic energies informing much of my work.” Jen Pagnini is a trained commercial artist with a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL. Her career as a commercial artist spans twenty years and includes creating graphic designs and illustrations for clients in San Francisco, CA and Chicago, IL. Pagnini has painted on and off again for many years. Her inspiration to paint comes from a desire to “connect to the untamed spirit of animals and nature. There’s an immediate intimacy that’s born out of trying to catch an image as it's fleeting. The vibrancy I find inherent to capturing a subject en plein air drives me to work and study on location. My paintings are encapsulations – records of the temporary, elusive environments that wilderness can create externally and internally.” Felicity Sidwell’s artistic journey has been one of constant exploration, study, evolution and growth. Originally working in the 1960’s, in medical microbiology and hematology in the UK, she started painting when she moved from England to Connecticut with her husband in 1971. Felicity lived and painted on the coast of Maine for many years, recently moving to Gettysburg, PA. A long standing member of the Plein Air Painters of Maine, Felicity’s paintings are for her “a two way process, a non-verbal communication between me and the future viewers of my work. I try to express with paint on canvas not only the beauty of the landscape before my eyes, but the atmosphere, the feeling of being there, to share with the viewer a sense of place.” Susan Tan was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and studied painting and graphics at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, before transferring to Ohio State University where she earned a degree in Art Education in 1975 and a Master’s Degree in Art Education in 2004. A retired art teacher, she recently relocated from Columbus, Ohio, to Portland, Maine. When asked to discuss her career as an artist and her creative process, Susan replied, “Like many artists, I’ve been drawing and painting since I was quite young. My love affair with watercolors began as a flirtatious creative past-time. Eventually, I took classes, which became my emotional and psychological hiatus from the stress of teaching. Like teaching, life presents lots of opportunities to learn from, process and interpret, and then share. Boiling it all down, painting watercolors is no longer a flirtatious past-time but a genuine love affair.” A juried member of the Central Ohio Watercolor Society, Susan’s paintings are exhibited at art galleries in Ohio and Maine. 'From a Woman's Perspective' is open free of charge between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. daily through September 29, 2019. Richard Boyd Art Gallery is open until 8:00 p.m. on the first Friday of the month. For more information about the exhibit, contact the gallery by phone at (207)-712-1097, via email info@richardboydartgallery.com or visit the gallery’s website at www.richardboydartgallery.com . To view images of works included in the current monthly exhibit, click on https://richardboydpottery.com/current-exhibit/ . Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RichardBoydArtGallery and follow us on Instagram #richardboydartgallery. Jane Herbert ~ ‘Bradford Point’ ~ Acrylic on Canvas 20” x 30” Copyright© 2019 Richard Boyd Art Gallery All Rights Reserved