Wellesley Society of Artists

August Artist of the Month

Meet Annie Newman

Annie Newman was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She attributes her developing love of art to the vibrant city and vivid visual landscapes that surrounded her. Many of her friends growing up had parents who were artists or art dealers. She attended Northwestern University where she studied Art History but never did much fine art at that time herself. She went to graduate school for architecture and has enjoyed a successful twenty-year career in the field. As she puts it, she “always sat on the sidelines” of the art world.

Newman married and had two children a little bit later in life. She took a step down from her busy career and did consulting. This is when her artistic journey began. Newman took classes at the Danforth Museum, Mass College of Art and Design, the New Art Center and Concord Art. She landed on portraiture and reflects, “I wanted to tackle the hardest thing, to prove that I had the chops, before I felt entitled to pursue less realistic work.” She is drawn to more abstract work,  but couldn’t quite figure out how to launch it. So, in 2019 she began with portraits of the “usual suspects and heroes in her life,” her husband, daughters and other family members and friends, and then moved on to public figures who inspired her. She took a “feminist journey reflecting the era (she) grew up in-the Seventies;” she painted bold modern portraits of Billie Jean King, Gloria Steinem, Simone de Beauvoir, Annie Liebovitz and others. She enjoyed choosing colorful patterned flat graphic backgrounds for her subjects which are quite compelling.

More recently, Newman has started her “Companion Series,” diptych paintings where one side is a portrait and the other side reduces the portrait to an abstract of shapes and colors. She continues to explore, working on finding her voice and her style now. She is also keeping busy with many community projects. During Covid, Newman co-founded Art Wellesley to grow and sustain the creative community in Wellesley. She has also been active with Art in the Park in Wellesley, the Public Art Committee of Wellesley, the WSA, Wellesley Women Artisans, Wellesley Parents Supporting Art Students, and is a Board Member of the New Art Center in Newton.

Newman credits many teachers for influencing her style and growth. Catherine Kehoe forced her to paint from life and to paint only light and shadows. Leslie Graff and Zhanna Cantor have also impacted her use of color and patterns. Her work has been shown in WSA shows, in solo shows at the Wellesley Free Library and at the Fountain Street Annex in Boston. She won Third Place for RIP Justice Ginsberg in the 2020 WSA Annual Library Show. This portrait, as her others, shows her strong use of abstract elements to take the painting “beyond representation.” The rest of her iconic RBG series can be found on her website in addition to her entire collection of heroes. Follow Annie on IG @annie_newman_art.

July Artist of the Month

Meet Mary Hunt

Mary Hunt grew up in Rockville Centre, New York.  Her first recollection of making art was as a young child in the basement of her local recreation center standing at an easel with pots of red, blue, and yellow  finger paints in front of her.  She remembers putting on an apron, dipping her fingers into the velvety paints, and smooshing her hands in circular motions all over the big sheet of paper.  “Oh, what fun!” she says.  Later in life, artistic inspiration and encouragement came from her Aunt Winnie who was always busy sewing or painting.  

Before moving to Massachusetts over 20 years ago, Hunt says “life was busy” having spent over 10 years working in New York, starting a family, and eventually moving to Massachusetts in 1999.  It was not until Hunt was in her forties and her children were a little older that she pursued art, taking classes and workshops with several local instructors, joining the Needham Art Association and Wellesley Society of Artists, and voraciously perusing books, going to galleries, and watching YouTube videos, all in an effort to increase her art knowledge and to develop her skills and style.

Drawn to realism, Hunt began in watercolor, painting flowers, fruits, and everyday objects.  Art is a way, Hunt says, “to connect with subjects and to create happy, familiar art.”  Hunt paints mostly watercolor still lifes and local scenes using her own photographs, and recently began dabbling in acrylic painting as she says, “it is quicker and tends to be more forgiving.”  She says she has been pleasantly surprised by the interest shown to her acrylics, however, she says her “first love will always be watercolor.”

Hunt is currently an Associate Member of the New England Watercolor Society, an exhibiting member of the Wellesley Society of Artists, and a member of the Falmouth Art Center.  She says “It’s only within the last few years that I really started showing my art.”  Her works can be seen at the Gallery on Main in Falmouth, on her Instagram page @ theunlimitedpalette and in her Etsy shop @maryhcreates.  Her advice to other artists is “Try different media, develop your own style, and don’t be afraid to show your work.”

The WSA is happy to welcome new exhibiting member, Julie Sahlins. She received both undergraduate and graduate education in painting and the arts. Julie is a dedicated sketcher and her work reflects the freshness of impromptu moments captured in her world. To read more about Julie, visit her WSA artist page.

Welcome to the WSA Julie!

The WSA is happy to welcome new exhibiting member Yola Gilibert. She has been interested in art her whole life, and describes herself as abstract realist painter, working in mixed media oil. Yola paintings are bold and capture the viewer with their strong play of colors. To read more about Yola, visit her WSA artist page.

Welcome to the WSA Yola!

Congratulations to Maria Babb who won the “People’s Choice Award” for her painting “Will you Marry Me?”, that was part of the Awakenings 2022 show. Maria was also awarded second place for this painting. 

June Artist of the Month

Meet Deborah Friedman

Deborah Friedman recalls that her early years in Los Angeles were a very special and formative part of her life. “My parents signed me up for classes at age 4 at the LA County Museum –  I drew Spanish dancers that were not great but were certainly not stick figures.” Early inspiration came from spending summers at her grandparent’s farm. Her family moved to Massachusetts when she was 9 and in high school, Friedman put together a portfolio to apply to University of Massachusetts Amherst Art program where she attained her BFA. She studied printmaking, lithography and woodcutting: “I wanted to learn a craft.” Her thesis, prints and drawings inspired by the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, went on to be accepted in national shows, and won the Berkshire Art Association Award and was purchased by the Berkshire Art Museum.

After college, Friedman found printmaking too costly to pursue and transitioned to detailed graphite drawings. She concentrated on portraits and still life and many of her pieces incorporated the artwork of the old masters in the background: “I did a piece with a window and outside the window was a scene by John-Francois Millet. Her work has always received much recognition and at this time she became a finalist of the MassArt Foundation. Friedman felt it was time to move on from the still life and decorative pieces she was doing and she created a children’s book using her oil paintings of pets traveling the world.

Friedman was accepted into the prestigious MacDowell Artist Colony (now called the MacDowell Residency).  She married the composer and physician Dr. David Hoffman whom she met at MacDowell. They later moved to Wellesley where they raised their two sons. Bolstered by the positive reviews she received, she started her Greenhouse Series and a large black and white botanical series. After that, she was stymied by an “artist block” and started doing decorative painting: faux painting, fireplaces, floorcloths inspired by quilts but soon moved on again. Friedman credits these “blocks, the times I felt that I was going nowhere,” with pushing her to find new subjects and mediums. “As an artist you spend a lot of time alone in your studio. If you’re miserable in a place you better find something different to do.” Now married with a toddler at home she perused artist magazines and noticed intriguing work using colored pencils.

Friedman, who had always loved doodling with colored pencils, began to take this medium more seriously. She loved the transparency of the colors and became adept at layering colors to come up with interesting and vibrant hues: “I found subtle nuances that really made the artwork pop.” Getting ready for a show in Newport, RI called “H2O” she came up with idea of drawing beach stones. “I wanted to explore the stones in water and I really enjoyed drawing the meniscus line.” She entered “Amber Bowl” into a contest by Artist Magazine and won First Place in Colored Pencils.   “Counterpoint in Green” was featured on the cover of International Artist. She is a signature member of the Colored Pencil Society of America and an award-winning member of the WSA. The DeWitt Pencil Company in England commissioned a drawing from her, and used her work for the cover of their one of their pencil tins.  In July of 2022, Ikea will be distributing two of her stones images globally.

During the pandemic, Friedman found it was time for another change. “I took out some black paper and started doodling a never-ending loop, a mobius. I’ve been doing very large paintings.” “I don’t do traditional painting. I like to juxtapose things that might not ordinarily go together.  I am very inspired by nature and color.” The artist also raises Monarch butterflies to protect this endangered species. We look forward to following her always evolving and stunningly beautiful work.