NHBM’s upcoming artist night to celebrate a lifelong painter’s journey

MOULTONBOROUGH — Sandy Martin completed her first oil painting at age 13, opened her own studio at 16, and by 22 was apprenticing at one of Rockport, Massachusetts' most respected galleries. More than five decades later, the Wolfeboro artist will share her work at the New Hampshire Boat Museum on Thursday, July 9, from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

The free reception, “An Evening with Sandy Martin,” will feature paintings and prints of Lake Winnipesaukee, vintage wooden boats, and the natural surroundings of New Hampshire's Lakes Region. Working primarily in oil and watercolor, Martin has long been drawn to landscapes.

“I've always loved painting landscapes, and the Lake gives lots of interesting, dramatic skies,” she said. “I can do really abstract paintings with bright colors, and people will say, ‘Oh, that looks like the sunset I saw last night over the lake.’”

Those lake scenes are a relatively recent chapter in a long career. After earning a bachelor of fine arts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1972, Martin was selected from more than 200 applicants to apprentice at the Romany Gallery on Bearskin Neck in Rockport.

From 1974 to 1978, she was a co-owner of the Dream Merchant Gallery on Main Street in Rockport, studying with nationally recognized Plein Air painter Paul Strisik (1918-98) and spending winters in New York City at the Art Students League. “People don't realize how much studying there is in being a good artist,” she said.

In 1987, Martin moved to New Hampshire and later operated a gallery on Main Street in Wolfeboro — a move that introduced her to wooden boats. Beginning in 2008, she volunteered for several years with the late Hank Why, one of the founders of NHBM, at the Museum's Vintage Race Boat Regatta.

“I had never painted a wooden boat before I moved here — I had to learn,” she said. “The people from the Boat Museum would come into the gallery and make sure I painted the details correctly.”

One of her featured paintings, "Opening Ceremony" (2011), depicts four wooden boats from that era — a Hacker-Craft, two Chris-Crafts, and a Gar Wood. “That particular picture never happened again, because back then they did a race of triple cockpits at noon, and the light was just right on the mahogany,” she said.

Over the years, Martin's work has reached audiences well beyond the Lakes Region. Prints of her Boston Skyline watercolor were sold through the Harvard Coop, with the original selected by Leonard Nimoy as a set design element for his film, "The Good Mother" (1988).

Her illustrations have also been projected during a symphony performance of Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals. In 2015, she developed a patent-pending technique called Impressionist Watercolor Imagery, which combines black-and-white photographic images with hand-painted watercolor. She also studies annually with world-renowned Australian artist Alvaro Castagnet, with whom she began training over a decade ago in Impressionist Watercolor Painting.

For Devon Kurtz, NHBM executive director, Martin’s background and work reflects the spirit of NHBM's mission to bring New Hampshire's freshwater boating heritage to life with exhibits, events, and on-the-water experiences. “Sandy's long connection to our regatta community and her dedication to capturing the boats and waters of the Lakes Region are a wonderful expression of that mission,” he said.

Featuring light appetizers and wine, “An Evening with Sandy Martin” is free and open to the public. To learn more, visit nhbm.org.