Island artists exhibit in East Aurora

Deb Meier and Karen McDonough will display their interpretations of “images seen through the window,” at the East Aurora Fines Arts Exhibit and Sale the weekend of June 29 and 30. This outdoor exhibit will be held on the grounds of the middle school at 430 Main St., across the street from the Roycroft Campus.

By Alice Gerard

Senior Contributing Writer

The art work of Deb Meier

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Deb Meier’s art journey

Outdoors in the elements is a favorite place for Island artist Deb Meier to paint.

“I go out at least four times a year to Buckhorn on the fishing dock and look toward the bridge. My favorite spot is the furthermost island out on Three Sisters in Niagara Falls, and that’s during tourist season. You get lots of exposure,” Meier explained.

“I’ll do landscapes painted outside in the elements, whatever they are. I’ve done the occasional still life. While I do realism, there’s a lot of impressionism in there because I’ll work with a triad for my palette. I might have 20 colors laid out in my palette, but I will use four. I’ll choose a red, a blue, a yellow and a wildcard color.”

“I will paint just about anything: florals; animals; lots of birds, particularly parrots. I live with two of them. They are small parrots, not big macaws.”

She explained that, by using a limited palette of four separate paints, she “might not get exactly the same color, but there’s a lot of shared color. The colors in (the parrot’s) face are the same colors as in the background.”

Meier’s birds are named Toulouse and Alex, who is 31 years old. “His breed usually lives until about age 25. He’s an old man. He’s a senior citizen. ‘Get off my cage.’ ”

She recently exhibited a painting of one of her parrots at the Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society’s members’ show at Artists Group Gallery, 1 Linwood Ave., Buffalo.

She also enjoys painting portraits of her fiancé, Brian, drinking various beverages, including hot chocolate, water, and whiskey.

Meier, president of Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society, said, “I didn’t always work in the art field. My bachelor’s degree in art is from Geneseo, but I also have a speech communications degree, which specializes in broadcasting. I did my internship in WKBW radio station. After that, I worked in radio for four years. Well, I went back to school part time to get my provisional teaching certificate. That was through Buff State. They were very happy to have me because I had done all my studio work. Did student teaching. Substitute taught for a year, and I got a job. But I’ll tell you, when you’re working full time teaching art, you don’t always have time to do your own art. I didn’t really get into painting until after I retired.

“I thought I was going to start painting acrylics on a relatively full-time basis. I fell into watercolor. Don’t know why it stuck. Maybe because I apply often to juried shows, where you can pay the $40 and your artwork can be turned away and not shown. That’s what happened the first time with the Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society.

“So, I took a workshop with Linda Kemp from Hamilton (Ontario), who was the demonstrating artist at that time. A year later, I submitted two pieces to the show, and both of them got in. I’m known for that. If I have a challenge, I’ll work at it and break rules, if necessary.”

One rule that Meier breaks involves how watercolor paintings are displayed. Traditionally, they are framed with matboard and under glass, to keep the painting from fading.

“I’m known for cold waxing those pieces that do not have glass. It is called breaking glass. Golden Art Supplies coined the term ‘breaking glass’ five or six years ago. There’s no glass or plexiglass between you and the image. There’s no glare. It really works because, two years ago, when I was last at the East Aurora show, there was a kid who sneezed chocolate ice cream onto a Breaking Glass piece. His mother freaked. I said, ‘No worries.’ I spritzed it with water and wiped it clean. She said, ‘Oh my! I’ll buy that piece.’ ”

Meier said traveling to different places to exhibit art is a team effort, something that would be difficult for one person to do alone.

“Brian refers to himself as my roadie. Without him, I couldn’t set up the tent for the East Aurora show or art on the Riverwalk, which is two weeks later this year. It’s at Niawanda Park in Tonawanda, Sunday, July 14,” Meier explained.

Meier mentioned people whom she wanted to thank for supporting her art journey.

“I’d like to thank my friends in the Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society. I’ve learned so much from so many of them. Each artist that you work with, whether they are teaching you or working side by side with you, makes it easy to learn something to add to your artwork, your art toolbox for future work. We’ve got to be lifelong learners.”

The art work of Karen McDonough

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Karen McDonough’s art journey

Karen McDonough does not travel far to create art.

Living near the West River, Karen said she draws and paints the images as she sees them through her window.

“I like to paint in my dining room. I sit at my dining room table and draw. I also take a lot of photographs for my paintings of trees. So, basically, I’m a landscape artist,” she said.

McDonough talked about the light that comes through her dining room window: “Not only does it change during the year, it changes by the minute. I tend to work in the morning because I love the morning reflections. If the weather changes or the light changes, I stop and come back to it.”

The view from her dining room window throughout the year has been the inspiration for “multitudes of drawings,” McDonough said.

“I would say just the fact that the light does change, that the seasons do change, and the change is so valuable to me because, everywhere you look, there is another picture.”

McDonough described her paintings as “very big. They’re usually 40 inches by 36 inches. I have one easel now, but I’m going to get another one so I can work on paintings, two at a time.”

When asked what style she liked to use most in her paintings, she said, “I would say I have an impressionistic influence. I also have a minimalist influence. It depends on what I’m looking at and what I’m studying. I get inspired to do a different technique with different things.”

McDonough also paints from photographs that she takes at a variety of places.

“I work from the photographs, and I might do a pencil study,” she said. “Have you ever seen (Charles) Birchfield’s studies he does? It’s kind of like that. He writes little notes. It helps you decide what’s important. It’s not a value study; it’s just a line drawing.”

“Just creating” is the thing that McDonough said makes her happiest about drawing and painting.

McDonough, who has a bachelor’s degree in art, said, as a student, she did “a lot of minimalist paintings, and I did a lot of figure drawing.”

Her experience also included an internship at Artpark in 1978 and another a year earlier at the Burchfield Art Center, now known as the Burchfield-Penney Art Center. She also did volunteer work as a research assistant at the Burchfield.

She spent her career doing non-art-related work.

“Mostly, I had to work in a drug store,” she noted. “I had to start getting experience at sales with Kelly Services. I built my resume so I could get sales jobs. For 23 years, I worked at Anda Inc. (pharmaceutical company at 3000 Alt Blvd.) as a sales representative. When I was working at Anda, I got five weeks’ vacation every year. So, I would do my artwork while I was on vacation.”

McDonough is now able to work full-time as an artist. She has been busy on a project for Dick and Jenny’s, “doing a series of portraits of chefs and baristas in the kitchen, making coffees. Right now, they’re primarily value sketches. There’s one in Tin Tins, on Kenmore Avenue in Buffalo. It’s a really good Chinese takeout.”

She also won her first award in an art show held April 6 to May 18 at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center in Niagara Falls. She won second place for a painting called “The Elm.”

“I only recently joined the Buffalo Society of Artists, and I’m an associate member. I love it,” McDonough said. “I saw a Buffalo Society of Artists exhibition at Artpark once, and I was so impressed that I just needed to go home and become one of their members.”

Other exhibits McDonough has been part of include the Birchfield-Penney Members’ Exposition and the Buscaglia-Castellani Art Gallery (at Niagara University).

“I established an art exhibit for the Island at the Buffalo Launch Club last winter,” McDonough said.

McDonough added she’s looking forward to exhibiting in East Aurora: “I’d like to thank my husband for working so hard and setting up my tent. He really is very helpful and supportive.”