“Greeting the Seasons”
An exhibit of paintings by Meredith Wildes Cornell
October 15, 2009–January 4, 2010
The Tiverton Arts Council is pleased to present “Greeting the Seasons”. The exhibit features the paintings of local artist and beloved teacher Meredith Wildes Cornell.
The exhibition at the Tiverton Town Hall will run from October 15, 2009 to January 4, 2009. An Opening Reception will be held on Friday, October 16 from 5–7 pm at the Tiverton Town Hall, 343 Highland Road, Tiverton RI. The Tiverton Town Hall is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm.
Meredith Cornell still lives in Little Compton RI, and is a graduate of the Swain School of Design in New Bedford, MA, and a student then and since of several masters from Sigmund Abeles and Reopel and later to Norma Anderson and Thomas Sgouros.
Ms. Cornell taught for many years at the Westport Art Group in Westport MA.
An Overview
If I stand back from this work, I see it’s mostly land or seascapes, for the greater part painted outdoors, plein air if you must. So they are divided (as much as color and space will allow) into four groups or the SEASONS. Huh! The first thought of the morning is ‘what is it like outdoors’. I’m a dreamer, anticipating the next calendar quarter while still immersed in the present.
Growing up on that hilltop peninsula where the wind swept in over the water through the pastures and buffeted the old farmhouse with 360 degrees of view unstopped, from the distant steeple to the North to Cuttyhunk to the South, even the wind-plastered windows were exciting there. But perhaps they are more so now, in a wooded dell where the vista is an intimate one. Close, the trees become vertical presences, protecting, cooling. All the life they harbor is nearer, the colors more vivid, horizonless, like wagons pulled round. The world is smaller, quieter, birdsong distinct and clear.
So the woods and time have brought my subjects to me. The old palette is tiny but loaded with color, toted around in a crumbling market basket loaded with the necessities for the job. Rocks from the shore, leaves blown in from the truck body, scruffy, abused brushes…the easel is a yardsale find. My first still stands in some webby corner, tall and twisty-legged, homemade on the barn brow fifty years ago.
Long years of painting together, teaching, critiquing or otherwise bothering a group of fine painters has blessed me with friendships I treasure.
The exhibition is sponsored by the Tiverton Arts Council. This is a town created, five-member committee, charged with the duty of enhancing and promoting the arts in Tiverton and educating the public as to the value of the arts in building community.
Bateman Farm
Winter Birds
Geraniums, Home
