SCULPTURE GARDEN OPEN HOUSE & IRON POUR
Saturday
June 18, 11 – 4 (Rain date; Sunday June 19)
View our beautiful sculpture garden with pieces created by
talented area artists and tour Green Foundry, our iron, bronze and aluminum
casting and teaching facility. (Check out SA 15 & SA 17 for our bronze and
iron casting classes).
Also, Sanctuary Arts is opening its doors to the public
for a “HOT” fundraising event to benefit our artist friend Ali Goodwin,
recently diagnosed with breast cancer.
IRON POUR FOR A CURE!
Cast iron with Green Foundry, friends, and students who
will be hosting Iron Pour for a Cure. A donation of $10 will purchase a “scratch”
mold- a block of hardened sand.. Participants will carve a design into their
mold. At 2:00 the crew at Green Foundry will cast molten iron into all the
scratch molds prepared. Participants can take their masterpieces home at the
end of the pour!
En Plein Air Weeklong Landscape Painting Workshop
This summer Sean Beavers, our own “famous” artist, is
offering an “En Plein Air” week long Landscape Painting Workshop from June 13 –
17, 9 – 3. (SA 1)
Sean demonstrates techniques and the specialized ways of
working involved in the challenges implicit in painting in an ever changing,
active environment. The quality of light, weather, tides, temperatures, drying
times of mediums, are all challenges the studio artist gets to avoid. The
traditional layering of paint and quiet contemplation does not work when the
artist struggles to grasp that fleeting cloudscape. Sean teaches the basics of
how to deal with those challenges and what to pay attention to. An artist just
can't get the feel of light, space and air when working from a photo. The
artist's eye records with so much more nuance than the camera ever can. This
two-fold approach of demonstrating techniques in the morning in an informative studio session, lets the
student get a grasp on processes that make the most of changing outdoor
conditions in the afternoon. The attempt
to depict light, space, atmosphere, and perspective while painting trees,
clouds and water is an invigorating challenge for both novice and professional
painters. Sign up here!
Sanctuary Arts' new Summer Class &
Workshop schedule is online.
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Sean Beavers - the background
Last summer, as a painting novice, I was fortunate to be
able to take Sean's workshop (see side note) and am contemplating taking it again, just for the
breadth of knowledge offered in this combination studio and on- location class.
 | | Morning Marsh by Sean Beavers |
When arriving at a painting destination, Sean typically
wanders around until he finds a view that appeals to him. Initially, he creates
loose, simple sketches of the basic shapes for his composition- 3 or 4 simple
lines for placement so that it will all fit. Using a lightly toned panel, as
the Hudson River school of painters did, so he doesn't have to fight with the
stark white of the gessoed panel, he works from the background forward so he
can overlap the trees over the sky. He uses different techniques and mediums so
the earlier stages can set-up a bit faster and some layering can be achieved.
On occasion he may do the finishing touches in the studio and with the sketches
that are successful, will create a larger, more finished studio painting, often
selling the study as well as the studio piece. About a third of his artistic
output involves the landscape, sometimes incorporating still life in the
landscape- his “Stillscapes” or, with some of his paintings of his fiancee',
painter Sydney Bella Sparrow, incorporating the figure in the landscape.
 | | South Shore Study by Sean Beavers |
I am always curious about an artist's initial forays as an
artist. Sean's was a traditional progression- from drawing on walls to
sketching on paper. A major turning
point for him occurred when, as a young teenager, he saw a retrospective of Van
Gogh's work at the Metropolitan, a show which included preliminary work-
drawings and sketches as well as hundreds of finished drawings and paintings.
To see this relatively short life represented by such a powerful show was awe
inspiring. In his later high school years, he taught himself how to paint with
acrylics and oils from pictures in books. And his family visited Rockport MA
where he first saw people outside painting and actually selling their work. He
spent a lot of time bothering them, amazed that they could do that for a
living.
A life spent drawing and painting has been a natural fit for
Sean, who has never had any doubts about his calling as an artist.
| | Evening Light Study by Sean Beavers |
As a young
man, he liked creating, designing and building things and was interested in
engineering and architecture, but his more creative side won out over his left
brain, practical side. He attended the School of Visual Arts, studying with
Steven Assael and Marvin Mattelson, who became his mentors. He studied fine
arts painting and illustration, eventually finding that his “real” arts
education was in the Illustration department where he learned his technical
skills. He worked as a commercial artist for 10 years and became frustrated
making art for others. In the year 2000, he decided to make personal art his
focus, with his first solo show at Anderson-Soule in Concord, which sold very
well. In 2006 he had an early career retrospective at Philips Exeter Academy
with more than 50 pieces on exhibit. He shows at The Banks Gallery at
Strawberry Banke, Quidley and Co. in Boston and Nantucket, The Cooley Gallery
in Lyme CT, and Arcadia Gallery in New York.
 | | Sunset over Madeket by Sean Beavers |
Currently he is working with
musician Andy Happel on a collaborative piece for a traveling show called
Painters, Players, and Poets, sponsored by the Maine Center for Creativity.
For those who prefer to work in watercolor for a one week
intensive, check out SA2 Watercolor; Coastal Vistas with Master watercolor
artist Dewitt Hardy, June 20 – 24.
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