April Artist of the Month
Meet Jodi Traub
Jodi Traub recalls a few early art memories. When her uncle lived with her family for a while he painted and allowed her to watch if she “was quiet,” and she was up to the task of sitting and watching for hours. At a very young age, her teacher called her parents to say that she was very talented at drawing. When her family moved from the North Shore of Massachusetts to Southern Florida, her mother found her an art teacher to ease the disappointment of an early teenage relocation. Art has always been a refuge for Traub who came back to the Boston area to attend Brandeis University where she received a BA in Fine Arts and Education.
There were few jobs to be found in the early eighties when she graduated but she pounded the pavement with portfolio in hand and got her first job at a publishing house. The company paid for her to go to New England School of Art and Design and she became a graphic designer. She worked there for four years and then moved to Chicago and worked for a medical publisher. Upon returning to Massachusetts, she worked for Simon and Schuster -Silver Burdett and Ginn (a children’s division in Needham) where she did book design for ten years. She and her husband were beginning their family and Traub, never one to sit still, started working freelance. While her children were young, she designed an educational game called Stargo, “Bingo with the constellations,” which was signed to go to market on the day her third daughter was born. The game was sold in Learningsmith and museums, including the Museum of Natural History in NY, until 9/11 and other unfortunate events happened.
A good friend of the artist asked Traub to help her with her invitation business and eventually decided to give her the business. Traub’s talent and warm personality led to her being constantly asked to expand her horizons. From the invitation business, she has now developed a very busy (until COVID) event planning business JD Invites/Joyous Occasions). She will also be involved in planning the wedding of her own daughter in September 2022. Painting will always be her first love, a place where she finds peace and inspiration. The pandemic has allowed me more opportunities to paint and has been the “silver
lining” during these troubling times. I am grateful for the art teachers, artist friends and associations that have always inspired me to do my best work.
When she wasn’t working or being a mom, Traub took classes with artist Susan Kelley after attending a Plein Air workshop. Dramatic colors found in nature serve as the inspiration for her rich pastels and oil paintings. She has always set aside at least one morning a week to paint. Kelley remains a very important mentor and, during the pandemic, Traub had Susan hold class in her garage providing space heaters until Thanksgiving. She has also studied with David Curtis and has recently done classes on Zoom with Eli Cedrone and currently with Vincent Crotty.
She has had her work represented in L’attitude Gallery on Newbury Street (now in the South End of Boston) and at The Green Heron Gallery in Ogunquit, Maine until it closed due to COVID. She had her work accepted into a corporate installation at Milton Hospital. She has won numerous awards and done many one person and group exhibitions, including juried shows. She is a member of the WSA, where she reviews new members’ entries and works on exhibitions. She was a featured artist on “Art Beat,” a local show for Cable TV. For Traub the silver lining of the pandemic was that she has had more time to paint: “It’s my peace, my time for me. I don’t think of anything else when I’m painting…It’s the thing I look forward to most each day.” Her work has been described as peaceful and she hopes that her paintings bring a sense of serenity to the viewer.
Naomi Wilsey grew up in Colorado in a Japanese American family. Her love of art began quite young. “When I was five, I was home a lot with my grandmother in Denver and I would watch a sumi-e or Japanese brush painting show. I was influenced a great deal by my grandparents who lived in Hawaii, my grandfather was a Japanese brush painter, photographer, and Bonsai expert and my grandmother taught Japanese and Japanese flower arrangement.” In high school, Wilsey was president of the Art Club: “though it can be quite solitary, I always loved being able to share art with others” and she has done so all of her life. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art and Education from the University of Colorado and was certified as a public school art teacher. Wilsey and her husband moved to the East Coast after college and she began teaching art. While she gained knowledge of most media in art education, Wilsey primarily paints in watercolor and sumi-e (Japanese brush painting), and paints traditional landscapes, still life and florals.
Although retired, Wilsey does a great deal of volunteer work and is currently serving as President of the Dedham Art Association (DAA). She is a past co-president of the Needham Art Association and an exhibiting member of the Wellesley Society of Artists. She loves to enrich her community and still enjoys sharing her art with others. She does all of the workshops offered at DAA and is in a weekly painting group, now meeting through texting. Wilsey is on the Board of Needham Open Studios, where she enjoys having an open house, doing demos and preparing hands-on projects for her attendees. She has exhibited with the Rhode Island and the New England Watercolor Society and has exhibited at Gallery Twist in Lexington.
Wilsey is very grateful for her home in Needham where she was able to build a large studio to paint and teach. In this Victorian oasis, she and her husband also enjoy their Japanese Tea Room which is used for meditation and tea ceremonies. Another great love for Wilsey is plein air painting because “it combines my love of nature and art.” While she has “made the best of it” during the pandemic, she longs for the days where she can go outside and paint with groups of artists
Gardner has a lot of wisdom to pass on to new painters: “Some of my best learning moments were from my worst paintings. I look to the paintings that don’t work quite right and learn from them. They teach me to observe more closely, to sit back and figure out why something doesn’t work. I also have a rule for workshops which I call the “No Masterpiece Rule.” This reminds me that workshops are for learning new techniques and not for making masterpieces. I think a lot of artists feel pressure to perform in workshops. Once I used the ‘learning lens” philosophy, workshops became much more enjoyable. Another thing that works for me is having very low expectations when submitting work to shows. I know that judging art is very subjective and I don’t get hung up on whether I get in a show or not. I have a very laid-back attitude about it which is probably the California side of my personality coming out.” Gardner also offers these three pearls of wisdom: “The keys to success for me have been having a daily painting practice, observing my subject matter for hours on end and having fun in my studio.” 
wanted to be different”, Teresa recalls, “art, however, kept calling me”. In high school Higgins found her creative outlet in both theater and art. She attended the University of Maryland where, with a plan to teach speech and theater, she majored in education, with specialization in speech and theater and minored in English. Her roommate was majoring in art and “was carving balsa wood sculptures while I was reading Shakespeare and agreed to share her art supplies with me”. She encouraged Higgins to move to Boston and take graduate art classes at Massachusetts College of Art.
Upon moving to Boston, Higgins taught English at Boston Latin while taking landscape and portrait painting courses at night. She moved to the painter’s paradise of Marblehead and while teaching speech and theater by day, she developed her painting and exhibited with great success. She eventually moved back to the Boston area and found new inspiration in her son. “I had this beautiful little boy…children are so wonderful to paint.” She moved to Natick where she was able to create a third floor studio in her home. There she began focusing on pastel portraits of children.
Higgins has been a member of the WSA for several years and was a past member of the Copley Society and Pastel Society of America. She believes, “If you are blessed with a creative gift, its important to develop it. It will always energize you, lift you up and bring you peace”. 
Despite the engaging objects he paints, Bruckner is more focused on style than on subject matter. His mosaic tile illusion provides cohesion to his pieces and provides harmony. The confetti-like background exudes fun, happiness, and exhilaration. His unique style is in many ways influenced by his time spent living in Los Angeles and Miami.
Coming next for Bruckner is a solo show at the Natick Mall in November 2020. He has just finished nine paintings, many inspired by some of the pioneers of the Pop-Art movement such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, and Robert Indiana. “I paint anything that makes me happy or I think would make other people happy when they see it. As a Pop Artist, I love to paint popular things using my signature style, whether they be famous people, iconic places, or lovable characters, words, or abstractions. There is a lot of variety in my artwork ranging from paintings of Oreo Cookies and Hershey’s Kisses, to, Madonna or Marilyn Monroe, to Boston’s Citgo Sign and the Last Vegas Sign, to paintings of colorful puppy dogs and Hello Kitty. Observing the first time a collector sees my artwork in their home is something that thrills me. It’s an inspiring reminder of the transformative impact a painting can have on the overall look of a room and the pleasure it gives people.”
