ANYTHING BUT A STILL LIFE

JAC co-founder Congdon displaying work at library


Above, Pierce Avenue’s Elizabeth Congdon shows her favorite painting that will be displayed during her show in the library. It is a still life of two dahlias in a black vase. Below, Congdon’s “Myrtle Street” was painted while she was attending school in Laguna Beach along the Pacific Ocean.

Above, Pierce Avenue’s Elizabeth Congdon shows her favorite painting that will be displayed during her show in the library. It is a still life of two dahlias in a black vase. Below, Congdon’s “Myrtle Street” was painted while she was attending school in Laguna Beach along the Pacific Ocean.

For Pierce Avenue’s Elizabeth Congdon, painting is magic.

An oil painter who works in the French Postimpressionist style, Congdon is drawn to depicting realistic scenes so she can watch the images come together on the canvas.

“There’s a real magic when I’m painting,” she said. “I’m representing something as opposed to something abstract. I love to watch an image come into its own. I love to see the space created and capturing something figuratively.”

The Jamestown Arts Center cofounder will be displayed at the North Road library through the end of 2018. Congdon was chosen by Jillian Barber, a Narragansett Avenue ceramicist who curates the lobby exhibits under the purview of the Conanicut Island Art Association.

This marks the fourth time Congdon, who has been a member of the association since 1990, has displayed at the library. She selected nine paintings for the gallery.

“It’s really just stuff from my personal collection that was in my home,” she said. “I had some paintings that were from a few years ago, and I had paintings that are barely dry. It’s a real cross-section of my work.”

 

 

Among the paintings selected are landscapes, seascapes and still lifes of the flowers in her studio. Congdon’s interest in still lifes was inspired by her grandmother, who would create bouquets from the flowers she grew in her garden.

“That’s how I really see painting flowers and fruit,” she said. “That moment where you bring something so magical, like a flower, into your studio or into your home, and you can capture it. It’s an amazing experience, to sit with a bouquet of white Casablanca lilies and watch the light all through and on the petals.”

Congdon, who routinely exhibits in Nantucket, Mass., said a painting of two dahlias in a black vase was her favorite piece on display in the library. It is a recent work that showcases new techniques she learned while attending graduate school at the Laguna College of Art and Design in California.

Her return to school also inspired two of the landscapes in the show. Although Congdon typically paints landscapes of Jamestown and Nantucket, she decided to include two paintings of Laguna Beach because she was inspired by her new surroundings on the Pacific Coast.

“The topography of Southern California is just so different than the East Coast,” she said. “Everything that I saw every single day was new to me. I didn’t know the names of the birds or the flowers. There was that element of being completely awakened.”

Painting en plein air

Congdon usually paints her landscapes en plein air, meaning outdoors, which is a holistic experience for her.

“I find the best thing to do when I’m feeling low is to replace my thoughts with something really beautiful and hopeful,” she said. “Painting plein air is pretty much the same thing. It’s that joyful time when the weather is warm in New England and you can go out and capture all of the colors.”

Aside from the still lifes and landscapes, Congdon’s display includes two portraits of her daughter, Evelina Pinto, and a painting of the living room at her parents’ house in New York City.

“It’s a green sofa near a buffet. It’s reflecting a wintery scene,” she said. “It’s a little surreal.”

Congdon has lived in Jamestown for the past 30 years. The Manhattan native grew up across Central Park from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which her family regularly visited.

“I just really fell in love with art there,” she said. “I wanted to make it myself because I couldn’t take it home with me.”

In 1985, Congdon graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with a bachelor’s degree in art. Before that, she attended Smith College in Massachusetts, spending her junior year abroad in Italy. While in Florence, Congdon studied with painters Charles Cecil and Daniel Graves, learning classical techniques that she continues to use.

“It was a nice foil for those times,” she said. “In those days, there wasn’t a lot of skill-based art education happening in colleges. You were expected to paint expressionistically and go and do it. So, I always really cared about the craft of painting and the techniques.”

After graduation, Congdon worked in the fashion industry in New York. That’s when she had an epiphany.

“I realized that I could no longer tell people I’m an artist,” she said. “I had been too far away from painting and drawing. I had been working really hard in the fashion business.”

Back to the drawing board

A friend of Congdon’s parents encouraged her to return to school, and she enrolled in Parsons School of Design’s Master of Fine Arts program in 1989. Although she spent one term at the Greenwich Village school, the experience inspired her to pursue her art career.

Congdon moved to Rhode Island shortly thereafter and started a small textile business. She sold children’s clothes and hand-painted T-shirts until big-box stores like Old Navy cut into her sales. Around this time, she began selling her paintings.

“It was like one door shutting and the other opening,” she said. “I just kept at it. I was showing up in Nantucket and I was doing really well there. That’s how it all started.”

In 2007, Congdon was part of the group that co-founded the Jamestown Arts Center. She became vice president of the nonprofit’s inaugural board of directors. The enthusiasm of local children for theater, painting and classical music encouraged the group to create the center.

“I was really inspired how the little kids soaked it up,” she said. “It turned out this little third-grader would know who Beethoven was, and would be stoked that the philharmonic was coming. We decided it would be really wonderful if there was a place for people to enjoy the arts, all ages, all abilities.”

Although Congdon is no longer on the board of the arts center, she continues to teach classes and workshops. This month, she held a “Finish That Painting” workshop in which her students could finish work they had been unable to complete during other classes.

Congdon’s students weren’t the only ones to complete a goal in 2018. Earlier this year, she completed her master’s degree in painting at Laguna College, graduating with honors. The decision to return to school was fueled by her regret of not finishing her degree at Parsons. She was getting sick and tired of telling herself, “I wish I had finished graduate school.” She learned about Laguna by surfing the web. “I loved my program,” she said.

Congdon’s exhibit comes down following her 56th birthday Dec. 30.