by Sandra Olivetti Martin and Kathy Knotts with Krista Boughey
As published in Bay Weekly July 2019
Weather plays out in high drama on the Bay’s big stage. In stormy weather, clouds sweep the sky in roiling 3D Technicolor, complete with sound and light effects. In calmer weather, the blue sky repeats itself in blue water. Sunrise and sunset pull out their rainbow palettes. Sun and moon dance in gold and silver shimmers on the water. No wonder artists are inspired by
the drama of weather on the water.
Local artists of the Annapolis Arts Alliance vied to show Mother Nature how creatively they could imitate her in the eighth-annual juried Maritime Show, Weather on the Water. They interpreted the panorama of clouds, the spectrum of the sky, sunrise and sunset, the roll of waves, the veil of fog, sails in the wind, and reflections on familiar coves.
“Watercolor, said Annapolis artist, Nancy Lee Galloway, is “a wonderfully fluid and unpredictable medium lending itself to creating great depth of value as well as being able to portray light in a transparent manner.”
Her prize-winning watercolor Hard Going stands out for humans
within the drama of the weather. She painted two men in the center of blue, roiling waves, themselves the mirror of the tempestuous sky.
“I wanted to find an image that would be somewhat powerful for the
Bay, which is most often fairly calm,” Galloway said. “I love dramatic topography, and having these two men in a little boat amid a pounding sea was one that could excite the imagination with the passion of the water and the fear of the water as well.”
Two artists won prizes for their work in glass: Bill Donaldson and
Clare Shepherd. Donaldson’s Spinnaker Breezes, a fused glass, fluid weaving of the colors in the light spectrum, earned him “Best of Show” and first place in Mixed Media.
“Glass is a way to shape color that is reflective and casts shadows,” Donaldson said. “It’s the best of both worlds. I used it to express the effect of sea breezes on spinnakers, almost like a regatta with overlapping colors.”
Shepherd used glass more tightly in Rain Drops, making a three-dimensional puddle, its smooth top pocked with rain drops that descend on the vertical sides.
“The intermixing of categories made this show more interesting for me as both a judge and a guest,” said Kathy Dennin-Meagher, artist and owner of Raye of Light Studio in Annapolis.
Also judging was Susan Mrofka Sears, owner of Local by Design.
See Weather on the Water at the Openshaw Balcony Gallery at Maryland Hall through August 15, 2019.
