Madison Art Society Highlight s November 2011

Letter from the President 

 

As the days are getting shorter and the foliage is quickly disappearing, there are still a few of us brave souls out there plein air painting. Jay Babina has done a wonderful job for us this year. Our last event for the year is the Annual Small Art Works for the Holidays by our Elected Artists starting on November 1, 2011 and it will be on view until the end of the year at Peoples Bank in Madison.

 

The MAS Board of Directors explored new opportunities for our artists to display their work this fall and spent a long time developing a long range plan to move us forward in the future. Beth Wardwell, our art demonstration coordinator, has done an excellent job with our demonstrations. Our last art demonstration by Kathy Anderson in September was standing room only.

 

The BOD had been looking into creating display opportunities for our artists besides our Member and Juried Art shows. We believe in collaborating with other non-profit organizations and it benefits both the artist financially and increase exposure of our artist's work and it helps to raise money for them. Unfortunately, we did not get as many artists wanting to participate in these events as anticipated, however it was good exposure for MAS artists and helped out the community groups. The Bauer Farm Fall Festival was a lot of fun as usual and we plan to do it again next year. 

 

Our Annual Meeting was held in September and it was a nice way to enjoy the company of our fellow artists. Our current board members have volunteered to stay on the board again for 2012. The MAS Board of Directors has continued to be very supportive and active in planning our society’s activities over the past year. MAS is very lucky to have such an experienced dedicated board and I am honored to have all of them willing to stay on for 2012. We recognize the years of service that they have all contributed to make MAS a great art society.  

 Our current board is Jay Babina, Pat Barone, Denise Casey, Nancy Chapman, Penny Chittenden, John Coplein, Ellen Fabian, Stuart Lerner, Linda Loen, Joan McPherson, Seymour Page, Maryanne Rupp, Beverly Schirmeier, Maude Schmidt, Patricia Seekamp, Paula Solimene Emery, John Tubb, and Beth Wardwell.

We need co-chairs for our Juried Show that is scheduled to be held in May 2012. If you would like to step up and co-chair this show, please contact me bschirmeier@yahoo.com. All of these events don’t happen by themselves and we need support.

Happy Holidays

Beverly Schirmeier

President of the Madison Art Society

DEMONSTRATIONS

Beth Wardwell has agreed to stay on as our coordinator so if you have any ideas for demonstrations, contact her at bethrw@comcast.net or at 203 - 488 - 4688 with the name of an artist and a contact number. The small donations at the demonstrations have allowed us to offer additional events. 

 

Elected Artists’ Small Works Holiday Show

People’s Bank in Madison invited us to exhibit our Elected Artists’ Small Works Holiday Show again this November and December. Over half of MAS members are elected artists. The show will run from November 2 thru New Year's Day. Pick-up day is Monday, January 2, 2012. A special thanks to Sara Nebel for coordinating it for us.

Madison Garden Club Art and Flower Tour

On October 8, 2011, the Garden Club of Madison held its first-of-its-kind event that featured a tour of private homes where the floral designers inspired by a painting, sculpture or photo created a floral arrangement display at several area homes. It was a lovely day and many visitors came through the homes and to see the floral arrangements and 10 paintings created by eight of our artists. 

 

Women Club - Food Pantry Wine Tasting Fund Raiser - Winter Club –

On September 23, 2011, the Madison Women Club held a Wine Tasting and Appetizer Fund Raiser for the Madison Food Pantry. All money that was earned (100%) went to the Madison Food Pantry. It was held at the Madison Winter Club. They asked the Madison Art Society artists to display their art work in the front dining area for guests to view before going into the wine tasting. Seven artists participated and we sold one painting.

 

New Members

Welcome to our new members: Ruthanne Benkovitz, Melanie Ward and Liane Philpotts.

 

Dues

Our Dues will remain at $25 again this year. Our financial year is January through December. Please send your dues to our Treasurer, Joan McPherson, c/o the Madison Art Society, Post Office Box 1383, Madison, CT 06443. 

 

Membership Data – Keep it Current

Maude Schmidt does a wonderful job coordinating our membership information. Please let her know if you have changed your address or E-mail data. Many of our news items, due to time constraints and postage and printing costs, are done through the E-mail. We do not provide members personal email information to other members. Please let us know your E-mail address so we can keep you informed. Pat Barone will be coordinating Volunteer Positions. When you send in your dues, please note also how you would like to help out during the year (i.e., chair a show, chair a portion of the show – help with Receiving, Jury Process, Hanging, Reception, Critique, Outdoor Show, Soliciting for Award money, Demonstrations – chairs and set up, etc.).

 

Madison Town Hall Art Exhibits

Patricia Seekamp is in charge of the Madison Town Hall exhibits. Your art work is on display for two months. Please contact her if you want to participate and show your work. She can be reached at wseekamp@sbcglobal.net or 203-453- 6720.

 

MAS Long Term Plan

The board spent several meetings discussing our long range plans and the future direction for MAS. We shared some of the key points from the Long Rang Plan and received approval on modifications to our bylaws at the annual meeting. It is essential for a society to look at itself closely and discuss its future direction. We take our members concerns and needs seriously. We have taken steps to enhance our art society and to find new venues to display your art work. However these new ventures require support from you.

Membership

• One of the strengths of MAS is the collegial atmosphere of a small group where beginning artists through professionals can co-exist and support each other. Therefore we want to keep membership around 250 members.
• We are a fine art society and have decided not to extend our membership to include crafts or photography.
• The membership fee will remain at $25 for 2012. Our financial year is January to December.
• Current members must be pay their membership fee by March 30^th or lose their Elected Artist standing. Written notice will be sent out prior to action (included in our current bylaws).
• We voted on modifying our bylaws to include an age requirement that members must be 21 or older. This age requirement will also be used for entry to the juried show.
• We already have in our bylaws that we offer membership to Friends – or non-artists that want to be involved and support the fine arts along the shoreline communities.
• We decided to keep membership open to all geographic areas since we have members that spend part of the year out of state and return in the summer.
• MAS blog site will remain. We will look into creating a website.

Programs

• We will continue to offer demonstrations with nominal donations. Remain 6 - 7 per year.
• Plein air is a great success and members want us to continue with it.
• Winter Studio will be offered again. An announcement was sent out after firming up our space agreement with St. Andrews Church in Madison –limit 20 artists.
• We will continue hold the art shows in the Scranton Library and look at other venues that offer good wall space, lighting, and traffic.

Juried Show Change

We heard from many of our members that we should limit the juried show entry to one entry per artist to allow more artists to have the opportunity to show their art work. We will try this approach next year and review the success of the show using that approach. The Jury Show is in May.

Members Show

We will offer a Member show in February. Size of work will be 36 inches in any directions – max.

Expanding Offerings

• Expanding our offerings to include workshops or bus tours to museums would require a volunteer to chair these events. Decision - This offering will stay on hold until we can find a person willing to chair them and the board would re-visit it at that time.
• Expanding art exhibits – Town hall exhibits will remain – Patricia Seekamp is chairing this opportunity.
• We reduced the number of outdoor exhibits this year. Based on your requests, we tried to offer several new co-sponsored art opportunities this fall. Unfortunately, there was little interest shown by our members. We will look seriously whether we will do more of them in the future.

Volunteers

New position added – Volunteer Coordinator – Patricia Barone. We will be coordinating the volunteer opportunities and matching them with our members. Patricia Barone will work in conjunction with our Membership Chairperson, Maude Schmidt.

We have many members that we can always count on to do the work and they have excellent knowledge and skills as well as experience. MAS wants to insure that we have co-trained others that have joined MAS and that we will have an expanding knowledge base to do the work into the future.

Any organization is only as good as their volunteer support. Being an active member includes helping out to make our organization vital. We never have problems getting support, but we also need leaders.

MAS Calendar of Events 

 

Winter Studio

The ten week Winter Studio will begin in January at the St. Andrews Church, Madison, CT. Denise Casey is coordinating it for us this year. We have met our limit of 20 artists (notice went out in an E-mail), but if you want to be added as a substitute, please let her know at dencasey@comcast.net.

 

MAS Member Show February 2012

The Member Show will be held at the Scranton Memorial Library in Madison in February. Pat Barone, Paula Solimene Emery and Stuart Lerner will be co-chairing the event and will be looking for volunteers to assist in making it a success. Receiving is Saturday, January 28, 2012 from 9:30 a.m. until noon. Take down is Friday February 24 from 3 - 5:30p.m. and on Saturday, February 25 from 9 a.m. until noon. We are still discussing the reception date. There will also be a Critique and demonstration/lecture scheduled for February.

 

Jury Show May 2012

As mentioned, we need a chairperson or co-chairs for the Jury Show in May. We start planning for these shows this fall. Procedures including a timeline of activities are written for these roles and there is support by the BOD officers.

The Receiving Date is Saturday, April 28, 2012 from 9:30 until Noon. Jurying is from 1 – 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 28, 2012, and Hanging is on Sunday, April 29 from 1 – 3 p.m. Non – Selected Pick up is Monday April 30 until Thursday May 4, 2012. Reception is under discussion. Demonstration is Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 1:30 p.m. Take Down is Friday, June 1 from 3 - 5:30 p.m. and on Saturday, June 2, 2012 from 9 a.m. – noon.

Artists in the News

 

Patricia Corbett and Lorene Scholl were the artists for the Months of September and October at the Madison Town Hall. Denise Casey and Stewart Byron will be the artists for the months of November and December. If you want to participate in displaying your paintings, contact Patricia Seekamp at wseekamp@sbcglobal.net or 203-453- 6720. 

 

Joan Mc Pherson will be displaying her watercolors with two other artists at the Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library in Stony Creek, November 6 -30^th with an opening reception on November 6, 2011 from 4 – 6 p.m.

 

Beverly Schirmeier will display her oil paintings and pastels at the Acton Library in Old Saybrook until November 26, 2011 and will then show her work for the month of December at the Henry Carter Hull Library in Clinton.

 

Margaret Dean is currently displaying her work at the Martha Link Walsh gallery in Branford and she was awarded Signature Status in the American Impressionist Society.

 

John Tubb, Susan Burnham, Linda Loen and Maryanne Rupp will be at the Malone’s Coffee House, Clinton, through November.

 

Sister Joan Bernard and Cindy Stevens will be showing their art work during November and December at Simply Pearls at Waters Edge Resorts, Westbrook, CT. 

 

Karen Wiesner will be having a solo art show at the Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedeh Synagogue at 55 East Kings Highway, Chester CT. The Opening is November 18 at 8:30 p.m. and the show will be up until January 16, 2012.

 

Maryanne Rupp is displaying her painting in a juried show at the New Britain Museum of American Art this month. 

 

Lisabeth Billingsley had two collages juried into the Pen and Brush People’s Choice Exhibit in NYC. 

 

Eileen Eder is part of the Group Still Life Exhibit at the Flinn Gallery in Greenwich, Ct from October through December 7, 2011.

 

Christine Ivers, Claudia Post and Laurel Friedman are part of the Connecticut Pastel Society Signature Artist Show at the Hartford Frame Company in East Hartford during November.

 

Pat and Bill Seekamp are the Artists for the Month of November at the Guilford Library.

 

Congratulations to Roseanne Berlutti on becoming an Elected Artist at the Lyme Art Association. Many of our artists have work in the LAA Landscape Show. 

 

Congratulations to Christine Ivers, Claudia Post, Diane Stone, Laurel Friedman, Diana Rogers, Karen Wiesner and Maryanne Rupp for their acceptance in the National Ct Pastel Society Renaissance Juried Show until November 13, 2012. Karen Wiesner won second place in the show.

 

Joan Cole is the artist of the month at the Liberty Bank in Clinton in November and Jay Babina will there for December and January.

 

Brabara Rossitto won the Essex Art Association award this past fall for her paintings, Scruffy an oil portrait.