ORDINARY SIGHTINGS: WATERCOLORS BY BRENDA S. ENGEL

May 24 – June 11, 2017

Hours: Monday to Friday, 3:00 – 6:00 pm

Community Artist Spotlight Space at Maud Morgan Arts is a new exhibition space that showcases the work of artists living and working in the community.

Watercolors have been my art medium for most of my life although, when younger, I tried out acrylics and oils. I turned exclusively to watercolor painting when I had young children and time for painting was limited, often interrupted. Watercolor paints are non-toxic, easy to clean up and require relatively little equipment, all practical advantages, but I soon came to recognize the unique aesthetic qualities water color painting offers expressive work, among them: freshness, transparency and spontaneity.

However, they’re not an easy medium. Watercolor painting is an active process – the paint seems to have a mind of its own, moving on the paper, colors often interacting in unanticipated, sometimes wonderful, sometimes disastrous, ways. And the disasters are virtually impossible to correct, the best solution being to start over.

On a more personal note, I am now in my 94th year and, although I have always done art “on the side,” so to speak, my professional life involved teaching art in elementary schools and, later, college teaching. 66 of my years have been spent as a resident of Cambridge- first as an undergraduate, later as the wife of a professor and engaged in my own work in education. Now, sadly, I’m a widow, my husband died in the fall of 2014. I have four children, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

“Maud Morgan Arts” are particularly resonant words for me: I first met Maud in 1955 when she was teaching in Andover. I admired Maud and her work over many years. Now I’m reminded of her almost daily: a beautiful gold-framed Maud Morgan oil painting hangs on the wall in my study.