NHPR story on White Mountain Paintings

 Last night New Hampshire Public Radio aired a story about the"West of Washington" exhibit.  You can listed to the story online.  I'm really happy that they gave me an opportunity to talk about my experiences discovering landscape painting through the GCA and the Hudson River Fellowship.  I copied the text from my portion of the interview below.  Here are some photos taken by Sean Hurley, the reporter who wrote this story.

photo: Sean Hurley/NHPR

Photo: Sean Hurley/NHPR

 
 Excerpt from Sean Hurley's radio story:

Emilie Lee, a 1999 graduate of Holderness School, who assisted with the exhibition opening, is just such an artist:
Emilie: What most people don’t realize is that the education that these artists had is no longer taught in art schools today.  So I’ve had to search long and hard to find teachers who could teach me the kind of skills that I could paint like this.
Learning the traditional methods and painting in a bygone style might seem like a form of nostalgia, but really it’s just a way forward for artists like Emilie:
Emilie:  I was searching for a way to really give the viewer the experience of being in the place.  I can’t think of anything more powerful to make art about.
It’s this desire to convey the living landscape that connects Emilie to 19th Century artists like John Kensett and Benjamin Champney.
Emilie:  You know, sitting still for 4 or 5 hours in one spot studying a tree…is…I never thought it could be such an exciting experience.  And when I’m sitting there, I realize how alive the forest is around me and I think that one little painting that takes 4 or 5 hours of complete focus is filled with life because you’re sitting there experiencing the living forest around you.
And that’s what’s on display on the walls of the Edwards Art Gallery.  The living forests and mountains and lakes and rivers and fields of New Hampshire.  Our own backyard from 150 years ago, still alive today.