Kathy Hirshon is an award-winning artist known to private clients and collectors as a creator of one-of-a-kind projects, ranging from ceramics, portraits and paintings to murals. While teaching art at the Bi-Cultural Day School she painted a celebrated Tree Of Knowledge mural. This spring she participated in the Bartlett Arboretum’s Annual Plein Air Painting Event, and as a result, the Bartlett invited her to create this one-woman show.
To prepare, Hirshon interviewed visitors, employees and members of the Bartlett Arboretum’s Board. Instead of being shown their favorite landscape views, Hirshon was regaled with spiritual and emotional stories “about the eyes and faces and insights encountered in the bark and under the leaves of the Bartlett’s ninety-one acres.”
Inspired by their passionate stories, she set about creating the works you see about you. During rainy days, she painted card-sized miniatures of imaginary trees using traditional media: ink and watercolor or acrylic paints on various fine art papers.
Stamford gallery owner, Sandy Labriola, encouraged Hirshon’s experiments with scraps of suede, silk and linen. These experiments led Hirshon to question what she might do with wood. And a never-before-used wood-burning tool replaced her paintbrush.
Hirshon “came alive with delight” as the community’s stories about the Bartlett mixed with the patterns of the wood. Hirshon’s expressive ways with color, texture and line complemented the wood grains resulting in the Spirited Trees panels. These panels feature too many faces and forces to be counted!
Stamford artist and photographer, Michael Van der Linden, photographed and created the master (actual-sized and miniature) archival prints, which are also available here for purchase.
Mrs. Hirshon and the Bartlett Arboretum hope you enjoy this exhibit and that it helps you on your path toward your own spirited vision of the Bartlett’s trees.
Spirited Trees is on exhibit in the Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens’ Visitor Center. The Visitor Center is open Monday through Friday from 9:00am – 4:00pm and Sundays from 11am -3pm. The Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens’ is located at 151 Brookdale Road in Stamford, easily reached off Exit 35 of the Merritt Parkway.
For more information call 203-322-6971 or visit www.bartlettarboretum.org
