Juni Van Dyke, Director of the Art Program at the Rose Baker Senior Center, recently unveiled the Artists of the Month exhibit for May and June. Every two months artists from the program are honored with an exhibit of their works in the lobby of the Senior Center. The public is encouraged to stop by the Center between 9am and 4pm any weekday to see the work of these accomplished artists.

For May and June, Juni has selected two artists who have been honored before: Helen Burgess and MaryRhinelander McCarl. The artists are shown below: Helen (l) and Mary (r) with Juni in front of the exhibit.

Helen Burgess was honored in an exhibit last February with her daughter Valerie Sadler. It was Valerie who convinced her Mother to attend the Rose Baker art program. Although Helen insisted she had no artistic talent at all, she gave the program a try. Juni and the participants in the program are glad she did as they have found her participation inspiring.

For this exhibit, Helen selected some of her more whimsical paintings. These works happily engage us by way of her untutored application of paint reminiscent of the practice of pointillism, a technique named for the clustering of tiny dots of color.  Historically, the Impressionist painters, most notably Seurat, first recognized pointillism. Below is one of the Helen’s works in this exhibit.

Mary Rhinelander McCarl was the May artist of the month in 2016, one of the first to receive this honor. In the summer months, she paints the beaches, marshes, and rocks of Cape Ann.  During the long Cape Ann winter she concentrates on painting flower arrangements and collages inspired by her study of Medieval Art.  Over the years, Mary has studied printmaking, batik, embroidery, and quilt making.

For this exhibit Mary selected several of her water-paint collages. Many of these works are infused with a background energy enhanced by the juxtaposition of softer tones. While in other collages, the reverse is true with the layering of more energetic tones upon a softer background.  Mary’s work is superbly unique as you can see here.

FINAL SNEAK PEEK! Count down begins! Volunteers and staff for The Open Door 18th annual Empty Bowl Dinner on Thursday, May 3 are busy as bees!  Soups and cookies are being made and collected, bowls are journeying from kiln to display!

Doors at Cruiseport Gloucester open at 4 p.m. and close at 8p.m. so you have 4 solid hours to fall in love with a bowl, bid on those Silent Auction Bowls, and tuck into some delicious local soup, bread and cookies!

This year is The Open Door’s 40th Anniversary, so come also to eat cake and celebrate!

Hope to see you there!

Still on the hunt for opportunities and activities for high school students over the summer?

Introducing the newest program from Gloucester Biotechnology Academy – SummerSTEM: Fish Fraud Forensics!

Gloucester Biotechnology Academy’s SummerSTEM: Fish Fraud Forensics is a one-week, hands-on summer course to introduce high school students to biotechnology. Held at the state-of-the-art teaching laboratory at Gloucester Biotechnology Academy, students will use modern biotechnology methods to identify a mystery fish specimen by analyzing its DNA.

Registration is now open to all high school students, ages 14 to 18 – no science experience required!  Visit our website at gmgi.org/summerstem/ to learn more and download the registration forms.