Thursday, January 26, 2017

Artists and Models in Wayland, 1980s


During the early and mid 1980s, a network of artists and art associations evolved in the affluent suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. They occupied unused buildings (legally and legitimately) and carried on their work in art studios made from old offices and classrooms. My mother was a member of "Arts Wayland" and later on, "The Center for Art in Natick" ("TCAN"). The Wayland group used an old school, Loker School, as their studio space and headquarters. (The artists had to move out of the school when there were more children who needed it.) In her Loker studio my mother would paint larger pictures and also do a lot of drawing from live models both nude and clothed. The classical model image you see above was one of these models, photographed (with her permission) in 1982 though except for the color it could be an "arty" photograph from 1882. When I was clearing out the old house in Natick I found hundreds of these drawings and photographs. My art-loving cousin Mitchell gave away the best of them but I have not figured out who would want the color slides. I have digitized a large batch of them and am processing the best ones in Photoshop. Here's another which gives an idea of what the studio environment was like for artists and models. This reminds me of a French "post-impressionist" painting.



Arts Wayland is still going strong, and TCAN Natick is a major element attracting people to the lively arts in my old home town.

Photographs by Esther Geller, 1982, restored by me in Photoshop, January 2017.

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