The annual Monadnock Fall Foliage Art Tour began Saturday, Oct. 7 and continued through Monday, Oct. 9.
Art studios in Keene, Antrim, Marlborough, New Ipswich, Munsonville, Rindge, Temple and Swanzey, as well as in a second tour around Dublin, opened doors to the public, inviting everyone to view previous and upcoming work.
Susan Wadsworth, founder of the tour, said, “The tour started around 2008; I started it but other people have been running it off and on. We’ve been sort of sharing the responsibilities… we have a whole bunch of artists… And [Dublin has] about 82 of them this year… We try to limit ours to 25 in area so we don’t compete with [Dublin] for the same artists.”
Wadsworth said the artists showcased, “A whole range of works… realistic works… pencil and … Raleigh Omerod does digital printing on glossy metal… Alex Kalish does beautiful blown glass… Daniellle LaBris and Gerry Friedman, he does sculpture and she does… beautiful, layered wax paintings… we have some fiber artists and woodworkers… there’s just a wonderful array of artists, art forms and mediums.”
Wadsworth described this tour to be, “The rich creativity of everyone in the area.”
Craig Stockwell, a new artist on the tour, said he is, “A studio artist, a painter, but my art forms are broader. I… do video and storytelling… My work is very involved with history and with trying to figure out what painting is all about.”
Stockwell had two new paintings featured at the studio on 22 Leverett Street in Keene.
“I’m showing brand new work… these big six foot paintings…that has to do with historic artists, Giotto and Matisse… I just sort of grabbed little pieces from their paintings; some of Giotto was telling… an ancient Old Testament story. [I was] kind of fascinated by the images he uses because they’re quite beautiful,” Stockwell said. “It’s a story of an old couple late in life and things like that. So I grab at these things, not because you don’t see the meaning ahead of time, but as I grab at them, I sort of hope to see what meaning comes out.”
In addition to those two paintings, Stockwell had a variety of other pieces on display. “In the rest of the , I’m going to be having a bit of a clearance sale of… old drawings and paintings of things from 15 or 20 years ago that eventually they sit around long enough,” Stockwell said. “It’s time to get them out into the world.”
Stockwell said he hoped that spectators would see his pieces and think, “‘That was interesting.’ A lot of people struggle with abstract work and I hope that they will just sort of see the pleasure I have making it. When you see a whole roomful of it, it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s actually kind of cool.’”
Benjamin Martins can be contacted at
bmartins@kscequinox.com
