October Artist of the Month – Meet Randa Khuri
October Artist of the Month
Meet Randa Khuri
Artist Randa Khuri was born, the youngest of four children, to her family in Palestine. With the formation of Israel in 1948, her family was forced to leave their home and settled in Lebanon, a country that also became very dear to her. She has been interested in both art and music since a very young age. She began playing piano as a young girl and played until college. She now plays the flute and sings with the Dedham Choral Society. She did not have formal art lessons as a child but constantly scribbled and sketched. She sketched anything she saw, including portraits. Khuri ponders, “I have always felt that Mozart is to music what Renoir is to painting.”
When she began college at the American University of Beirut, she had to decide on a major. Between Fine Art and Nursing, she chose Nursing and has always appreciated this training. She married her husband in Lebanon and they moved to the United States for his medical training. Khuri had planned to get a Master’s Degree in Nursing but decided this would take too much of her time away from raising their three young children. When the children were in school, she began taking Sculpture at the MFA with Ralph Rosenthal. There was a watercolor class next door and she began taking watercolor as well. Both mediums lit a spark in Khuri but watercolor remains her favorite means of expression. She also attended the new England School of Art and Design and received a degree in Interior Design. Still preferring to spend as much time as possible with her children, she continued to pursue her painting.
Khuri’s advice to others is to “Do what you love to do.” She was able to follow these words herself and continued to master watercolor painting. She loves to paint still life of fruits, vegetables and flowers, which she finds “so beautiful when you look closely.” Inspired by Georgia O’Keefe, she notes that her biggest fan was her husband who passed away fourteen years ago. “He always had cards of my work printed and made enlarged gallery prints.” His encouragement bolstered her with the confidence she needed to continue producing art. She did several busts before her husband passed-one of him, one of each of her children and one of Mother Teresa. Both her paintings and sculptures have been in juried shows and have won awards.
She has exhibited through the WSA, the Needham Art Association (where she is former board member), the Dedham Art Association (current board member) and the Rhode Island Watercolor Society . She also does exhibits with fellow artists as well as solo exhibits. Her favorite spots to exhibit have been the Grace Chapel in Lexington, the De Cordova Museum and the local town libraries. Khuri has a solo exhibit beginning this month at the Needham Public Library and we encourage all to visit. A video interview with the artist from a past exhibition there can be found on YouTube.
During the COVID pandemic, Khuri developed her first painting block. Fortunately, she took a Zoom class with fellow WSA member Nan Rumpf and found herself cured by Rumpf’s talented teaching. A group very special to Khuri is the Watercolor Connection of which she has been a member for 12 years. “It is not a class but a group of artists who paint together, provide one another with critiques, encouragement and friendship.” Khuri paints for friends and family and has done commission work including one sculpture of a young girl, now grown up. Her 3 children all have her paintings and sculptures in their homes and she notes, “my 16-year-old grandson has several large paintings of mine in his room;” he has asked her to paint these. Art for Khuri has been a constant source of “pleasure and peace.” A quotation from Renoir holds much meaning for this artist: “ The pain passes but the beauty remains.”
Living internationally for most of my twenties shaped my art and the opportunities to create it. Most restrictive of all was cruising aboard a 28-foot wooden sailboat for four years, sailing from England, through Europe, then crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean, where I settled and helped run a charter sailboat for a year in the British Virgin Islands. The intention was to sail to the United States. While cruising, I worked at various jobs and made and sold art where opportunities presented themselves. This eventually led me to become a self-taught sign painter, specializing in lettering boats. Wishing to improve my work, I learned of an art school in Boston, where I completed degrees in both sign painting and commercial art. At the same time, I met my husband and started a family.
If you frequent local beaches during the summer particularly on Cape Cod, it is hard not to be aware of great white sharks. It was nearly 50 years ago when the movie JAWS was released and terrified swimmers, particularly those who enjoyed an evening swim. The iconic image on the movie poster is the artwork of WSA member 
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.
