Local artists Helen Cantrell, Catherine Christiano, and Judy Friday will be featured from June 5 – 8, in the 52nd Annual Art Show, hosted by the Community Cooperative Nursery School (CCNS), in Rowayton, Conn. The featured artists will be present at the opening reception this evening, June 5, from 7 to 10 p.m. Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be offered, admission is $40 and valet parking is available.
This show, which includes work by an additional 70 artists, is a great opportunity to view numerous works in a wide range of styles and price points. Many of the paintings can be viewed on the show’s website www.ccnsartshow.org. Forty percent of your art purchases are tax deductible.
Additional show hours are Friday, June 6, 6 – 10 p.m., June 7, from 2 – 8 p.m., and Sunday, June 8, from 12 – 4 p.m. with admission of $15. On Saturday, June 7, from 3 – 4 p.m., Helen Cantrell will be demonstrating her palette knife painting technique, and on Sunday, June 8, from 2 – 3 p.m., Judy Friday will be demonstrating her painting technique using etching ink on paper.
Helen Cantrell is a painter and printmaker from Old Lyme. Born in Chicago, Illinois, she moved to New York City in 1968, after majoring in painting at the Washington University School of Fine Arts in St. Louis, and has lived along the Northeast coast for the past 40 years. Cantrell was inspired early on by a Horizon magazine article on Richard Diebenkorn and the Bay Area figurative painters. She retired from working as a typesetter in NYC about 15 years ago to pursue painting and printmaking full-time.
Cantrell has intensively studied and worked with printmaking techniques at workshops in Connecticut, at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and at Crown Point Press in San Francisco. She is an elected artist member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists, exhibits extensively in the Northeast, and recently co-founded gallery19 in Essex with Judy Friday.
Catherine Christiano is a representational artist from Old Lyme, who works primarily with painting and drawing media. Her unlikely path to studio art began with a bachelor’s in engineering and an MBA in finance followed by some years of work combined with part-time study in drawing and painting at the National Academy of Design’s School of Fine Arts in New York.
A move to Connecticut prompted her to fully focus on her artwork and additional study at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, where she completed a BFA in 2001. Christiano’s artwork often focuses on subjects that are close to her own life and environment. She exhibits in the Northeast, is included in numerous private collections, and has been published in several journals. Christiano also designed the seal for the Town of Old Lyme.
Judy Friday was born in Columbus, Ohio, and lived there until she graduated from Ohio State University in 1980 with a degree in Business Administration. Having worked off and on in artistic and decorative painting for several years, she began to study art seriously when she and her husband moved to Lyme in 1985. Friday studied at Lyme Academy of College of Fine Arts from 1987 to 1993.
Her primary focus recently has been on landscapes, particularly bodies of water with an interest in the haze and light that bounce off the water. She finds inspiration in the Connecticut River and the Long Island Sound. Recurring subjects also include Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Island. Friday exhibits in Ohio and the Northeast and recently co-founded gallery19 in Essex with Helen Cantrell.