Winter on the East End is notoriously brutal—not just the weather, but the total reversal from summer’s constant hustle and bustle. But with the stroke of a brush and the click of a mouse, a Sagaponack-based artist championed a revolution against subfreezing temperatures and offseason inactivity on the East End.Three years ago, Aubrey Grainger read “Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color” by Kevin MacPherson, in which he suggested a challenge: paint 100 paintings in 100 days. Ms. Grainger bravely accepted—and, to her credit, succeeded. As leaves fell from their respective branches this past November, Ms. Grainger conceived her own painting challenge—30 paintings in 30 days—a smaller task, but still daunting for the friends she convinced to join.
“I was challenging others,” she said during a recent telephone interview. “I kept running into my painting friends who kept saying, ‘I haven’t painted in a month,’ or ‘I don’t know what to paint.’ I’d say, ‘Get yourself in the habit of painting. Get out of your own way. Just do it!’”
Through social media, Ms. Grainger gathered 30 participants and created a small, private group on Facebook for the artists to share their daily paintings. Thus, a digital community of cabin-fevered painters was born.
Starting Thursday, June 18, the public will finally get to see what they were up to.
Eighteen of the artists agreed to debut, and sell, their favorite paintings in the exhibit “Best of 30 Squared” at the Water Mill Museum through July 12. Oils and watercolors depict still lifes, landscapes, and portraits on canvas and paper.
They began on January 5. There were no rules, merely suggestions, according to Ms. Grainger: Each painting should be finished within two hours—though the leader herself admitted spending up to eight hours on some. Once they were completed, each artist would then upload a photo of the painting to the Facebook group, where it became routine to peruse the feed, leave an encouraging comment, or even criticism, from one painter to another.
“Every day, we posted what we had done online, and it was just wonderful,” recalled Hampton Bays-based participant Pam Thomson. “There was advice and a lot of enthusiasm. It was really so nice to have other people, in January, doing the same thing.”
That accountability was exactly the push artist Lucille Berrill Paulsen needed. Labeling herself an avid procrastinator, she said she is known to stay away from her studio at all costs, even resorting to vacuuming her home in Water Mill to escape painting.
“Writers get writer’s block, painters call it avoidance. My studio is in my house, and I will do anything to not go in there,” she said, adding, “We all need a little motivation and the ‘30 Squared’ really gave it to me. We had a terrible winter, and we were frozen in our homes.”
Ms. Paulsen, who has been painting for nearly 50 years, developed a method for the 30-day challenge that saved her minutes, maybe even hours, of hair-pulling while trying to create at her easel. For some of her 6-inch-square panels, Ms. Paulsen would manipulate the same pear, bowl and lamp to create a different still life each day—taking a bite of the fruit, for instance, or changing the direction of the light, she said.
Her favorite painting was a portrait of her 2-year-old granddaughter, Ingrid, which she completed while visiting her in Ohio, she said.
“Unfortunately, it’s not in the show,” Ms. Paulson said. “I gave it to her—well, her mother.”
“Best of 30 Squared” will open on Thursday, June 18, at the Water Mill Museum and remain on view through July 12. A reception will be held on Saturday, June 20, from 4 to 7 p.m. Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily, closed Tuesdays. Admission is free. For more information, call (631) 726-4625, or visit watermillmuseum.org.
on Jun 16, 2015