Branching Out

March 29 through April 21 - Artists Reception March 31 from 2 to 5pm

Six artists,” Parallel Painters" combine talents to present the exhibit “Branching Out” at Lost Acres Vineyard gallery.

The artists, A. Walter Kendra, Estrid Eklof, Carolyn Newell, Lisa Tellier, Josa Weatherwax and Margaret Wilson have exhibited in solo and group shows in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Virginia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. They have met weekly for the past 10 years in plein air and in private studios. Pastel, watercolor, oil, graphite, charcoal, colored pencil and found material are their tools. They work, celebrate and support the individuality of varying approaches and their artistic lives together.

Estrid Eklof

A. Walter Kendra

Carolyn Newell

Estrid's paintings are always based on a watercolor foundation- often combining opaque and transparent paints, often building up six or more layers of paint, often adding graphite and conte crayon marks for textures. The shapes are from nature, the paintings are about sensing nature. Recent exhibits in Connecticut; Essex Art Association; Gallery on the Green, Canton juried exhibit; Brick Walk Gallery of Hartford; Town and County Club of Hartford; Canton Public Library; New Britain Arts Alliance Gallery; New Britain Museum of American Art juried exhibit; Hartford Fine Art Gallery. She is currently Artistic Director of the Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Arts Fund and serves on the Evelyn Bonar Storrs Scholarship Committee for the Musical Club of Hartford and is a national adjudicator for the American College of Musicians.

Lisa Tellier

Lisa was born in the north central mill town of Fitchburg Massachusetts and began my first serious art studies as a child at the Fitchburg Art Museum. The natural world has always been my favorite muse and I can usually be found close to water whether it is the Connecticut River or my lakeside home in East Haddam Ct.  Feeling a bit of an island girl at heart, I have had the good fortune for the past several years to visit and work on Monhegan Island, an island steeped in artistic history. I enjoy working in a variety of media including watercolor, oil, collage and photography. I belong to local art groups including the East Haddam Art League, the Essex Art Association and the Lyme Art Association. I have studied at many local schools including the School of the Worcester Art Museum, Paier School of Art and the Old Lyme Academy College of Art. I graduated magna cum laude from the University of Hartford with a degree in art history and received my MLA from Wesleyan.  
My work is in private collections across the country and has been accepted into juried exhibitions in Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Walter,  professor emeritus of art at Central Connecticut State University, received his master of arts from Columbia University and bachelor of science from Kutztown State University in Pennsylvania.  He pursued further study at New York University, the New School for Social Research, and Pratt Graphics all in New York.  
He studied at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Art School at San Miguel del Allende, Mexico, Positano Art Workshop, Italy, and the Hartford Art School.
Kendra taught in the Pennsylvania and Connecticut public schools, at Queens College CUNY, New York University, Little Red School House and the New School for Social Research, all in New York City, and at Wheelock College in Boston.  Among his first prize awards are those in sculpture at the Beth El Temple Exhibition, West Hartford, in painting at the Art Museum, Pittsfield, and in graphics at the Walter Vincent Smith Museum, Springfield.  He has had painting commissions and is represented in private and public collections. Kendra has exhibited widely, in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts and Virginia in solo and group shows.  His studio is in Collinsville.  He is president of the Maxwell Shepherd Memorial Arts Fund in Canton and is on the Board of Trustees for the Hartford Art School.

Josa Weatherwax

Josa Weatherwax is a contemporary mixed-media artist whose lineage is steeped in the arts. Her father, Tom Smith, was an architect who studied with Mies Van der Rohe and her mother was a talented painter. Her uncle was sculptor Tony Smith and her cousins are artists Kiki and Seton Smith. Themes of vulnerability, displacement, love and hope are explored in her work. She works to transform materials to create something she has never seen before. Josa earned her BA from Rutgers University and studied at the University of Salamanca, Spain as well as the Hartford Art School, The Lyme Academy of the Arts and Trinity College. Josa has exhibited widely in juried solo and group shows and has taught art in public and private institutions, including her studio in East Hampton. Her work is held in private collections in Spain, Sweden, Holland and Germany.

Carolyn obtained degrees in zoology, art history and accounting. In addition, she has pursued her interest in art by studying painting, sculpture, and drawing at the University of Hartford, the West Hartford Art League, Wesleyan University, Central Connecticut State University and at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts.  Recent showings include: juried shows at the New Britain Museum of American Art, the West Hartford Art League, the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, the Collinsville Bicentennial Art Show and the Canton Art Guild.  She had joint shows at the Farmington Main Library, the Barney Library Gallery, the Rathburn Memorial Library in East Haddam, the Collinsville Savings Bank, the Brickwalk Gallery and the Hill-Stead Museum Gift Shop.  

Margaret Wilson

Margaret was born and raised in Norwich, Ct. She earned her B.S. in Studio Art from Skidmore College and her Masters in Art Therapy and Creativity Development from Pratt Institute. She also did postgraduate study at the Institute for Expressive Analysis in NYC.  She worked for many years as an art therapist and mental health hospital administrator. Her work has been shown in several solo and juried group shows, including the Stockman Gallery in New Britain, The Gallery on the Green in Canton, and the New Britain Museum of American Art members’ juried show.
Most of her work is mixed media abstraction created by a process of assertion (via line and mark making) which is countered by a response via color and obliteration.  The aim is to create a spontaneous expression of inner energies—where gesture, color, and form all tousle for attention to activate the surface—while reaching that fluid, subconscious zone that travels between rationality and intuition and captures moments of lightness, pleasure, and aliveness.