11/30/08

1. 191 Westminster Street


Ida Schmulowitz

Park View/Trees and Forsythia
oil on canvas; 6’ x 8’


About the artist and the work
I have painted outside since about 1978. When I moved to Fox Point from the Benefit Street area in 1981, I looked around for a place to paint and was struck by the panoramic view from the pedestrian bridge over Rte 195 leading to India Point Park. Some people looked at the bridge as just a cage, but many appreciated the uniqueness of the spot. Standing over the highway looking east or west at sunrise and sunset was inspiring. The bridge became my outdoor studio for 23 years. Over the years I would change my particular vantage point on the bridge, which would lead to the beginning of a new series concentrating on a particular view. Each painting evolved over a series of time- sometimes put aside and taken out months or years later to be completed. I work with layering of color to create a certain depth in the work. I also work with color to create an overall color light in each piece. Painting from the same spot for so many years gave me a familiarity with the place so that the landscape also became a jumping off point for my experimentation with creating space and using color.

This painting is one of the last paintings of a series I completed looking at a particular group of pine trees and a bank of forsythia. The trees and forsythia were chopped down as part of the construction of the new pedestrian bridge.

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