(Marcellus, NY – April 16, 2013) From May 4 through June 30 oil paintings and sketches by Skaneateles Artist Hetty Easter and her Sketch Club Students will be on display in the Art Gallery at Baltimore Woods Nature Center, 4007 Bishop Hill Road, Marcellus.
An artist reception for the show, “Spring Discoveries en Plein Air,” will be held on Saturday, May 4, from 2 to 4 p.m. The exhibit and reception are open to the public with no admission or parking fee.
Hetty and her students created all the artwork while outside. “Working en plein air is, for me, a means to connect with nature and keep my soul in balance,” says Easter. Easter paints on local hillsides and in forests and swamps, and the show’s images depict many familiar scenes and landscapes.
Easter’s Sketch Club gives children the opportunity to enjoy being creative in a relaxed setting. “Sometimes in a traditional art class, children and adults feel pressure to make something finished, to frame. I take a different approach. I want the children to experiment with ideas without this pressure. Sketch Club creates a frame for art, not art to frame,” explains Easter.
The process helps children appreciate nature through art, and art through nature. “What happens when a person notices their surroundings, I mean really notices? So many things… among them an awareness of a connection between the self and nature, observing the relationships of nature to the earth and sky, and a feeling of being in the present,” says Easter.
She started the club last September. It meets approximately once a week after school, with a break during the coldest winter months. The exhibit will include work from the more than twenty children, in grades 1-6, who have participated in the group since its inception.
Easter is a working artist living in Skaneateles. She holds a B.F.A. from Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, a B.S. from the College of Human Development, and studied figure drawing, painting and portraiture at New York City’s Art Students League. After several years as a New York City designer, she began her career as a fine artist, returned to her native Skaneateles and opened her studio.
More information about Baltimore Woods Nature Center can be found on their website: www.baltimorewoods.org.