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Janaury Issue 2003
Beaufort Art Association in Beaufort, SC,
Features Works by Elaine Leander
by Kristine Cox
"Have paints, will travel". That's
been the lifelong creed of Elaine Leander, upcoming featured artist
at the Beaufort Art Association Gallery in downtown Beaufort,
SC. The exhibition opens Jan. 9 and includes water media paintings
and scenes of the great outdoors from Maine to St. Thomas, from
Alaska to Odessa. Her exhibit will run until Feb. 19, 2003.
Wherever she goes, Leander's subjects are usually drawn from nature.
It's the shapes that inspire her, she says. "The trees and
flowers and leaf shapes, the contours of light and shadow. And
the colors - the colors of the marsh, of New England in the Fall,
and snow! There's so much color in snow." Another favorite
is water and the reflections of the shore, boats, or bridges.
Leander grew up in Massachusetts, but settled in Westchester County, NY, where she lived for 28 years. She taught elementary school and her husband was an executive with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. One day, they heeded the call of the countryside. They took a map and drew a circle marking an area within a three-hour drive of Westchester County, and set out to explore. Before long, they had purchased 10 acres in the Vermont woods near Stamford, Vt. Hank Leander built a cabin there. For years, it was a weekend getaway. Now, the Leanders are residents of Callawassie Island, but they still spend five months out of the year in Vermont. In addition, they have taken trips all over the world.
Leander never formally studied art until after she had earned degrees from Tufts University and Western Connecticut State University and was established in her teaching career. But she had always painted and she started taking art classes, at least one day a week, a habit she continued for years. She also took countless workshops in both the North and the South, including many Beaufort Art Association workshops, which, she says, "are so good, with nationally known instructors, there is really no reason to leave Beaufort to learn to paint." She has studied with such well-knowns as Frank Webb, Skip Lawrence and Maxine Masterfield.
Of course Leander makes it sound easy to travel with all the paraphernalia an artist thinks she must have in order to create. The Leanders drive a mini van, and Husband Hank says that by the time Elaine gets all her art supplies loaded up, there is barely room enough left for him to pack a change of underwear. The Beaufort Art Association is open to all interested in the visual arts. In addition to the Port Republic Street Gallery, the BAA produces an art lecture series for the general public, sponsors special programs for students, maintains six satellite galleries in such public places as the Beaufort County Building, and sponsors a large, juried show each March at the Green Street Art and Recreation Center. The workshops that Leander referred to number four to six a year and each one is an intensive four or five day learning experience with a well-known artist. Although they are open to the general public, they are so popular they fill up about as soon as they are announced.
For additional information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings or call Betty Betz, BAA president, at 843/525-6798.
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: info@carolinaarts.com
Subscriptions are available for $18 a year.
Carolina Arts
is published monthly by Shoestring
Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2003 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
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