"Something to Think About" is the collaboration of photographer, Linda Hirsch, and watercolorist, Ellen Davison, two artists who strive to present through art, their love and concern for the earth and those who inhabit it. Davison's paintings and Hirsch's photographs reveal the mystery, the beauty, and the strength of creation, as well as its fragility. The artists' works show the power of towering clouds roiling over mountain peaks; the mystery and awesome energy of natural forces escaping from within the planet; the enormity of space; the magic of moonlight; and the imprint of humans on a changing world.
DAVISON'S watercolors represent her reaction to both natural and man-made environments. She is intrigued by texture, the contrast between light and dark, and the drama of changing light on an object or scene. To her, the world is a paradox. She wonders, "How can something so solid, powerful, and enduring be so fragile and finite? Earth is beautiful and inviting, yet dangerous. This is what I try to express. Sometimes I paint what I see, other times I paint from my imagination, but they are all painted with a love for the subject and a thrill in the creative process."
Davison began painting with watercolors in Houston, Tx., in 1968. After moving to NH., she studied with local artists, such as Carlton Plummer, an AWS watercolorist known for his Maine seacoast paintings. She learned about painting on silk from Nina Lapchyk, a textile artist from Ukrainem, now living in Massachusetts.
She teaches art at a small highschool in Candia, NH., and to adults in the Rivier College RISE (Rivier Institute for Senior Education) program in Nashua, NH. In 2005, she was commissioned to do a mural of the town of Pepperell, MA. Her paintings reside in several local collections and are exhibited through the Nashua Area Artists Association Gallery One in Nashua, NH.
HIRSCH, a Photographer, Photojournalist, and Psychologist, creates documentary as well as mixed-media pieces. Her training in Photojournalism began in the late 1970’s with Georgia Litwack (a disciple of Minor White, MIT), at DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA., followed by studies with Ulrike Welsch (Harvard University CLL), explorations of Holography with Steve Benton at Harvard, hand-made paper with Joe Zina, Bernie Toale, and Susan Haas, alternative processes with Laura Blacklow (SMFA), and more recently, computer-generated Iris prints onto a variety of surfaces with Jonathan Singer Editions of Boston.
Her work has appeared in publications and exhibitions ranging from local to international and has been commissioned for archives and private collections (eg: Estate of Buckminster Fuller; HH the Dalai Lama; Anne Frank House; Brandeis University; Wellesley College; Harvard U. FXB Center). Numerous renowned jurors have accepted and awarded her work in a wide range of exhibits.
The images HIRSCH has created for this exhibit were inspired by her lifelong sense of wonder about and concerns for the natural world. She considers these images portals into a world of "deep looking", opportunities to meditate on the fragile ecosystems which sustain our existence, with which we interact and for which we each bear responsibility. Her personal mantra is: "Stop, focus, and breathe". Her favorite quote is: "To be an optimist, close one eye and believe with the other." (anonymous). She considers this to be the essence of her photography.
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