York Town News
York Senior Center sets precedent with art show
By Virginia L. Woodwell
Kathleen Lantz, left, and Catherine Trent were both exhibitors at the first-ever Senior Center Art Show, held at the center last Wednesday, June 14. The center staff hopes to make this an annual event.
Photo by Virginia L. Woodwell
YORK BEACH - The show was short in duration, but there was much to be seen - including evidence of some extraordinary talent.
In the end, it proved so successful that a promise has been made that it will all happen again and last longer.
Last Wednesday, June 14, from 12:45 to 3 p.m. in the recreation room of the York Senior Center, Center Director Lori Nelson organized an art show to display the works of center members and some staff.
Billed as the "First Annual Senior Center Art Show," it featured more than 20 exhibitors showing works in media ranging from oils, acrylics, watercolors and photography to cross-stitch, Japanese embroidery, sculpture, burnt wood and imaginatively-conceived bird houses.
Nelson herself is an artist whose studies include two years at the Massachusetts College of Art, two years at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and a 1991 Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in art education and art therapy from Anna Maria College. The idea for the art show followed her presentation to the members of a course in painting in watercolors. Her exhibitors last Wednesday, however, represented all levels of accomplishment, and she said she welcomed not only the varied media but retrospectives as well.
Kathleen Lantz and Catherine Trent both took Nelson's watercolor course and credited it with sparking new interests for them.
Lantz reported that she'd drawn and had experimented with oils when she was very young, but had to give all that up when her four children came along. Painting in watercolors was a brand new experience for her, she said, and a rewarding one. She brought five framed images to the show, renditions of objects like a teapot with teacups and birds at a birdbath, executed in light colors with a charming simplicity.
Trent said that she hadn't painted for six or seven years but had worked in both oils and watercolors, and had taken courses in each in base recreation centers as she followed her husband's military career around the world.
Both women had high praise for Nelson.
"She's wonderful," Lantz said. "She gives encouragement, she's very informative and very pleasant. I just adore her. And she has the respect of all the people here."
Nelson said that insurance concerns and other needs for the room meant that the exhibit had to be dismantled the same day. But, she promised that it would be back next year, if not sooner, and in more appropriate quarters.
The other local artists represented at the first-ever invent included Carol Lavery, Jean Gardner, Hector Butler, Grace and Warren MacMillan, Jeane Loane, Bobby O'Shaughnessy, Freda Webber, Pricilla Haley Billous, Joanne Alinovi, Ann Meagher, Pat Whalen, Annette Regan, Elena and Art Fiske, Jean Coats, Janis Marshall-Colby and Skip Colby.
