Lame Duck

Six years ago when I was invited onto the Board of Trustees at the North Shore Arts Association I couldn’t figure out what in the heck they wanted me for. I got a degree in art a million years ago and painted in oils for a few years until I decided to give up smoking. For some reason I couldn’t paint when I wasn’t smoking. Maybe it was just my body’s way of telling me that one activity was as non-productive as the other. At the time, that was true.

Years later, when I moved to Gloucester and began taking watercolor classes with Betty Lou Schlemm, I saw a significant improvement in my work but I realized a sad truth: I didn’t get the satisfaction out of painting that I wished I did. I would watch other people paint, totally absorbed and enchanted by what they were doing, and I envied them. But, for me, the passion to paint wasn’t there.

Later, after taking workshops with Sandra Saitto and Lynn Loscutoff, I got interested in mixed media and that became a more productive medium for me. I’m an eclectic person with a love of texture and surface design and I found a lot of excitement in playing with different mediums. Through all of this, I continued to write and to earn a living as a designer.

Ultimately you come to a point in your life where you realize that, for now, you just don’t have enough hours in the day for everything that you want to do. I have to design to pay the bills and I love designing. I have to write. Period. Painting, however, I could let go of.

But I had been elected to the Board of Trustees of the NSAA and that seemed an awesome responsibility for someone who wasn’t sure she was an artist. For my first couple years on the board I had no idea what I was doing there. Because I have a background in print media, I became the Chair of their Publications Committee and from there took over the web site. I went to meetings faithfully, I listened to talk about the hundreds of issues that are concerned in running such an institution but I often wondered what good my being there was.

The North Shore Arts Association is one of the oldest and most distinguished arts associations in the country. It was founded in 1923 and its building is a huge old livery overlooking Smith’s Cove and the Gloucester skyline. I am shamelessly proud of having served on the board there these past six years.

Last night was my next-to-last meeting as a Board member. I’m a lame duck now. In the Association by-laws, terms of service are limited to six years and I’ve served mine. Suddenly it seems there is so much that I still need to do.

In my six years I have witnessed incredible transformations. Our building looks beautiful - the floors have been resurfaced and polished to a high gleam, the walls have been carpeted, track lighting installed, heaters, ceiling fans, exhaust fans are now helping to make the building more comfortable. The basement is being refurbished and a vault installed. These are all the sorts of things that need to be done and it doesn’t take an artist to do it. The web site has been my own contribution and it has turned into a highly-useful, attractive tool that sees an amazing amount of traffic. I’m so proud of all that has been accomplished.

So next month will be my last meeting as a Trustee. I will stay on as Web Master and Chair of Publications and Publicity. I’ll serve on the committees for the upcoming exhibitions for the New England Watercolor Society and the American Watercolor Society. But what I know now is, they didn’t need me as much as I needed them. The NSAA has enriched my life immeasurably. I still don’t feel the urge to paint but when I look at that building, and the web site and the display case filled with catalogs I have designed, I am so grateful to them for electing me to their Board. The NSAA has made me realize that I am an artist - whether I go back to painting or not.

Thanks for reading.