ARTS Lakes Region Art Association moves annual show to its Tanger Outlets Gallery (1126 w/cuts)

By ROGER AMSDEN, LACONIA DAILY SUN

TILTON — The Lakes Region Art Association will have a new setting for its annual member art show, the LRAA Art Gallery located in the Tanger Outlets on Route 3-11.

It is the association’s largest exhibit, featuring more than 100 new original works of art and is on display starting this weekend until Sept. 10.

Now in its 77th year, the show highlights the best works of the Lakes Region Art Association members. Judged by three art professionals, awards will be presented in the categories of oil, watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, drawing, pastel/oil pastel, sculpture, print making, digital graphic art, and photography /digitally enhanced photography.

This year’s judges are Pam Tarbell, owner of Millbrook Gallery and Sculpture Garden in Hopkinton, Tom Driscoll, professor of art at Plymouth State University and Richard Whitney, a portrait and landscape oil painter.

“Each year our members work hard to submit their newest and best creations, making this show truly worth seeing” said LRRA President Jean Kennedy. “It is very impressive to see the quality and talent of art that exists in the Lakes Region. And it's exciting to see it held at our own art gallery.”

In recent years the show had been held at Vynn Art Gallery in Meredith.

Presented by the Bank of New Hampshire, the show is free and open to the public.

She said that the Lakes Region Art Association, founded in 1940, is a non-profit group providing education and support to local artists, both amateur and professional, in the Lakes Region.

The association, which celebrated its 75th anniversary two years ago, is compiling a video to trace its history, and will hear a report on progress on that project at its August meeting.

Roger Gagne, a member of the group since 1960, and the winner of numerous awards in its competitions, says the association was originally known as the Laconia Art Group and was formally founded in 1940 by William Robertson, Wilfred Marsland, George and Harriet Booth and John Hoyt.

He says that there have been many noted artists who have been members of what would become the Laconia Art Association around 1973 and expanded to become the Lakes Region Art Association around 2005, including Peter Vuilleumir in 1942 and Bernard Stafford Good of Gilmanton, a noted artist who joined in 1952 and worked with Doubleday Publishers, the Saturday Evening Post and worked extensively with NC Wyeth.

Edward ''Ted'' Ray of Gilford, who had retired from his Boston studio, joined in 1953 and served as director and chaired many of the annual shows in the 1960s and 1970s as well as teaching many of the association's members.

Fritz Robbins of New Hampton, a colorful artist who was well known for his etchings as well as his oil paintings, joined in 1954, as did Loran Percy of Gilford, a photographer, artist and teacher whose Lakes Region landscapes would win him numerous awards in art association shows.

Other notable artists joining the group included Bob Montana, creator of the Archie cartoon strip; Bill Krug, well known cartoonist and watercolor and gouache artist; Peter Hall, a Meredith teacher and gallery owner and Bob Erickson of Bristol, a New Hampton School teacher who worked with charcoal and watercolor.

Long tenured presidents of the art association have been Dorothea Hilliard Freysinger (1952-65), Beth Ide (1967-70 and 1975); Rita Bolduc (1987-90), Winnie Hackett (1991-94) and Don Frost (1994-2005).

Jean V. Kennedy, whose work reflects her love of flowers, nature and the outdoors, joined in 1952. She was born and raised in England and came to the U.S. as a young woman in the mid-1960s. She worked for Columbia University in New York as a research administrator for many years before moving to Louisiana with her husband. She now lives in Gilford with her husband and their two dogs.

Kennedy says she was greatly influenced by a Louisiana art teacher, Myrna Waters, who taught her to push values and how to better use color and shape in a painting. As an artist she has earned many ribbons and awards by entering competitions both in New Hampshire and Louisiana.

Vice president of the association is Gerri Harvey of Gilford, a retired school nurse who has been painting for pleasure for over 30 years.

“As a painter, I love natures's details; the way sunlight touches treetops, the textures of tree bark and rocks, the dappled reflections of land and sky on water. I see the natural world in luscious, colorful detail, and that is what I paint, inviting viewers to engage with my landscapes both visually and emotionally, heightening their appreciation for the natural world by experiencing it through my artwork.” says Harvey.

She likes working with acrylic paint, which she says is permanent, lightfast and vibrant and has the virtue of drying quickly, which allows her to layer the colors to achieve depth and subtle nuances and highlights.

Kennedy says the association has more than 100 members from all parts of the Lakes Region and that members especially appreciate the gallery at Tanger Outlets as it provides them with a place to display and sell their works.

Among those whose work is displayed at the gallery is Jini Lambert, who has always been interested in all forms of art. As a child, she learned that she could reproduce a fairly accurate rendition of anything, from people to pets.

At the age of 41, she was forced to change her dominant hand and is now writing and drawing with her left hand. It taught her that absolutely anything is possible and there is  always another way around any situation.

It was in Whitefield where she grew up and there that she taught herself pencil, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, oil, oil pastels, and water soluble encaustics.

She says there is a wealth of subject matter available in all of New Hampshire and lots more to take advantage of.

Gerri Harvey, vice president of the Lakes Region Art Association, stands next to one of her paintings which will be on exhibit at the Lakes Region Art Association Galley in Tilton during the 77th annual members art show. (Roger Amsden/Laconia Daily Sun)

Gerri Harvey, vice president of the Lakes Region Art Association, stands next to an exhibit of her paintings on exhibit at the Lakes Region Art Association Galley in Tilton. (Roger Amsden/Laconia Daily Sun)

Jean Kennedy, president of the Lakes Region Art Association, stands next to one of her paintings which will be on exhibit at the Lakes Region Art Association Galley in Tilton during the 77th annual members art show. (Roger Amsden/Laconia Daily Sun)

Jini Lambert, who at the age of 41, was forced to change her dominant hand and is now writing and drawing with her left hand, stands next to a panel of her works at the Lakes Region Art Association Galley in Tilton. (Roger Amsden/Laconia Daily Sun)