FEATURING TALENTED LOCAL ARTISTS

“I have to work from life. If I work from a photograph or make it up it’s not the same.” The life that artist Marilla Palmer is referring to is nature, and very often, the gardens she cultivates. Palmer comes from a long lineage of garden enthusiasts and nature lovers, in particular her father, who instilled in her a love for gardening and an esteem for the natural world. The Anthropocene, the period in Earth’s history when human activity first began to have a significant […]

Although not an artist myself, I have always admired and loved being around artists because of the way they continue to celebrate the imagination and maintain a sense of wonder that many of us leave behind in our childhoods. And they do it despite the fact that pursuing a career as an artist can be an incredibly difficult path to follow. An artist friend told me once that despite being relatively well known, he had essentially chosen a life of poverty, all so he could […]

“Throughout my life, the best things have happened because I took a risk, not a foolhardy risk, but one that was necessary or calculated. So although we might want a direct path, a clear destination, we must be careful not to be overly cautious.” – Steven Careau

The word that the artist Steven Careau most often uses to describe his childhood is “precarious.” Growing up on an isolated dairy farm in central Massachusetts, he became accustomed to physical work – feeding cows, harrowing fields, and haying. […]