Celebrating Stony Brook Valley
Original Plein Air Paintings

September - December 2024

Plein air, which is a French phrase that means "in the open air", is the practice of painting outdoors with the subject in full view. Plein air artists capture the essence of a landscape or subject by incorporating natural light, color, and movement into their works.

This group of local amazing plein air artists, including Carl Ahlstrom, Carol Marcy, Liz Perry, Karen North Wells, and Leslie Kramer,  have come together over the past 2 years to create an exhibit that expresses their love of Wing’s Island and the historic Stony Brook Valley celebrating its immense natural beauty, an icon of Brewster. Their hope is that their art will inspire others to explore this rich, unique, and diverse landscape.

ARTISTS:

www.karennorthwells.com
www.karennorthwells.blogspot.com

Karen North Wells is an impressionistic artist, painting landscapes, seascapes and still life in oil, watercolor, and acrylic. She owns The Underground Art Gallery in Brewster. After graduating from Florida State University, Karen taught art for 20 years in the Massachusetts Public School system and has been teaching painting since 1994 at the Creative ArtCenter in Chatham. She also teaches at The Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis and the Council of Aging in Orleans.

lizprints@gmail.com

Liz Perry is a printmaker and painter who enjoys creating mixed media paintings, etchings, monotypes, watercolors and collage. She is the owner of Blue Jacket Studios in Brewster, MA. Perry graduated with a BFA from Alfred University’s College of Art, studying with printmaker/photographer John Wood. For the past 45 years, she has continued to work with many fine printmakers and artists, encouraged and helped other artists on Cape Cod assemble group shows, and has taught classes and workshops on many printmaking techniques, including collagraph, linocut, monoprint, mixed media, watercolor and color theory. She is influenced by the colors and seasonal changes of her flower gardens, salt marsh ecosystems, and her favorite local inlets and beaches, such as Paine’s Creek in Brewster. She is a member of the Cape Cod Museum of Art, The Creative Arts Center in Chatham, and PAAM, showing regularly in their exhibits. Perry also shows her work at Trove Gallery on Route 6A in Orleans. She is Co-president of The Printmakers of Cape Cod, and has been a member of PCC since she moved to the Cape 42 years ago.

www.drcarolmarcy.com
drcarolmarcy@gmail.com

Carol Marcy discovered watercolor while in graduate school. Colored pencils, paper, brush and a tray of colors provided a wonderful stress release as peaceful, playful fun. Over the years, she has taken classes and had a good time exploring techniques with better quality paints and paper. When she retired to the Cape she took a class with Liz Perry, which renewed her interest in watercolor along with inspiration she finds in nature.

lkramer50@comcast.net

Leslie Kramer received her MFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design and studied printmaking for one year at Stanley Hayter’s Atelier 17 in Paris, France. Her monoprints and etchings incorporate her interest in nature and the man-made as she employs innovative and sophisticated techniques. For 26 years, she taught printmaking and was gallery director at Elmira College in Elmira, NY. She has also taught at Smith College, Northampton, MA and The Rhode Island School of Design. During the summer of 1999, she was Artist in Residence at Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, France. She has received awards from The DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Mass., and several Elmira College Faculty Development Awards. She has taught printmaking workshops at several colleges and museums in the Northeast and at Atelier du Livre in Montolieu, France. She currently lives and works out of her studio on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

lizprints@gmail.com

Carl Ahlstrom graduated from Sheldon-Jackson Jr. College in Sitka, Alaska and also the University of Arizona, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a minored in Mammalogy. He has lived in Brewster for most of his life and is known for his paintings of the area and his decoy carvings.

Steve Swain - Frying Pan Gallery

Healthy Food Chain
Long Term Exhibit - Generously Donated by John & Patricia Kenney 2022

Steel sculptor Steve Swain is an accomplished artist, architectural designer, craftsman, and boat captain. He is responsible for creating several notable local restaurants and buildings. His last project before switching to art full-time was designing and overseeing construction of the restaurant Pearl in Wellfleet and the restoration of Duffy Gardinier’s Tug Boat shack, saving the last of old clam shacks from the wrecking ball and creating The Frying Pan Gallery on Wellfleet Harbor Pier where Steve designs and hand builds steely renditions of marine life. In the fall of 2019, a second Frying Pan Gallery was opened in Orleans.

In his secluded studio Steve seeks inspiration in nature and credits the great outdoors for his creativity and compositions. His custom marine installation at the Museum is an amazing design and work of art highlighting the ocean world of bait fish, bass, and great white sharks.

For more information on Steve’s work go to: www.fryingpangallery.com

James Prosek

Award Winning Artist, Author, and Naturalist
Long Term Exhibit

CCMNH is proud to present the work of artist, author and naturalist, James Prosek. His book Ocean Fishes, is a collection of 35 Atlantic fishes, all of which were painted life size based on individual specimens he traveled to see, a journey that started right here on Cape Cod. Naturescape Gallery is exhibiting two of his life-sized Fine Art prints; a Swordfish and a Blue Fin Tuna. His work has been shown in numerous esteemed galleries.

For more information about James and his work go to: troutsite.com