I attended the Opening Reception for Joseph Lorusso and Peregrine Heathcote at Newbury Fine Arts and I was not disppointed. I had a chance to speak with both artists for well over a half hour each and both of them were very pleasant and also very forthcoming in giving advice and sharing their working techniques.
I spoke with Peregrine at the very beginning of the night and he was very nice. He has just arrived in from England the day before and I explained how to get to the Museum of Fine Arts and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museums and also supplied my advice on which paintings he had to see if he visited them. His son was also accompanying him and was very pleasant. For some reason the English accent is more impressive in person if that makes any sense and I have to admit I was amused when he made a referral to the television as the "tellie".
Peregrine was kind enough to share with me his working process and gave me some really strong encouragement to keep plugging away at my art and to never stop painting.
I waited patiently for Joseph Lurusso to finish talking with collectors. After all they pay the bills and I'm just a lowly admiring artist. When Joe seemed to be free I introduced myself and explained that I and expressed how much I love his painting style. He asked me my name and if I was collector (I hate when I have to explain that I'm not) and I explained that was not a collector but that I painted as well.
Joe immediately seem to warm up to me and asked me if there was any questions I had for him. I of course asked him about his working process and how achieves the warm and loose feelings to his paintings. He explained that most of his work is in the beginning stages; composing the painting and a great deal of time is in the creation of the underpainting. He then provided me his business card and explained that on his web page there is a time-lapsed slideshow of his painting process which I had already seen prior. He then explained that he then goes back after the underpainting is dried and then works mostly in thin glazes and layers them on top of each other and the sometimes he also paints opaquely as well. He walked me around to a few different paintings and explained how they were painted and his thought processes.
I like to think that both he and Peregrine enjoyed the fact that there's an artist at the reception and that they get a chance to talk to another artist instead of just collectors, but then again they also need to mingle with the collectors. When I go opening receptions, I always wait until the artist is free and also that there doesn't appear to be any collectors nearby waiting to speak with them. I never monopolize the artist and I'm always alert to fact that if there is a collector nearby that seems to be waiting that I step back and allow that networking to happen.
I didn't take photos with either artist unfortunately this time around because the gallery was still packed with collectors when I was getting ready to leave and I didn't want to be a strange, star-struck art geek so I opted to ditch the photo session but I'm positive both artists would have kindly obliged.
