Sketchbook Pages 12/2016

Fort River footbridge. Watercolor and casein. I started in watercolor, but closed my sketchbook while still wet, causing major blemish. Went in with casein to cover opaquely.

Sketchbook pages 10/19/16

I biked out to the bike trail, which is built on an old railroad line, including a gorgeous truss bridge (a lattice truss, to be precise) spanning the Connecticut River. I rode over the bridge, then pedaled down to a dock on the river to paint the bridge from below. The bridge is somewhat tricky to draw, because although at first glance one would assume that the cross beams would be orthogonal to the sides, they are not, which means that if you draw it right, the perspective looks wrong. I was mostly interested in getting the play of light on the complex nineteenth century ironwork, foliage and river reflections.

Painting in Amherst Historical Society show

I entered a painting in a juried show at the town Historical Society and it won first place!

http://amhersthistory.org/moving-day/

I did the painting many years ago in 1989, and had it in a couple of group shows in Boston back then. It had languished in my basement ever since until the announced theme of the show, "moving in, moving out, moving on" reminded me of it.
It was inspired by the inevitable scene at rush hour in Boston's Park Street station as people trying to get off the antiquated streetcars would have to fight through the mob of blockheads pushing to get on, who seemed unable to grasp the concept that the emptying must precede the filling. It struck me as having larger resonances with the human condition - our societal battles between enlightenment and atavism, and our individual struggles to emerge into the light in the face of our own selfishness and ignorance.

Moving Day

 

Screenshot from Amherst Historical Society website (no longer available online)

Text of webpage:

Moving Day, the Amherst Historical Society’s 4th Annual Juried Art Show

Matthew Mattingly, Let the People Out, oil on canvas.

The Amherst Historical Society invites visitors to view Moving Day, its fourth annual juried art show, open now through December 11, 2016. This is the fourth annual art show hosted by the Amherst Historical Society and Museum. An artists’ reception is scheduled for Thursday, October 6th, from 5:00 to 8:00 pm at the Strong House in conjunction with Amherst Arts Night Plus. The public is invited to attend both the reception and the art show.

We asked artists to present their own visual representation of what it means to move in, move out or move on. Gilles Giuntini, our juror, awarded first prize to Matthew Mattingly for the oil on canvas painting Let the People Out, second prize to Sally Dillon for the hand felted wool piece Amethyst Brook, and third prize to Ellen Kosmer for her mixed media collage What’s Left Behind.

Sketchbook pages 9/2016

Trees at Hadley dike

Lone Wolf people 

Sketchbook Pages 7/16

Truro clouds

Dusty Miller

Pilgrim Monument, Sunset

Pilgrim Monument, Early Morning

Pilgrim Monument, Overcast

Utility Poles, Truro

Utility Poles, Truro (Gouache)

CT River Island

Pennsylvania Hay Bales

Sketchbook pages 6/16