By Arts & Culture Editor Joan Kirschner
I recently viewed the 88th Regional Exhibition of Art and Craft, a juried show of Massachusetts and New Hampshire artists at Fitchburg Art Museum (pictured above). Though that event has ended, the museum offers many other compelling exhibits and programs. Visit soon!
I chatted with three of the artists…in alphabetical order:
Merrill Comeau
Merill Comeau works with repurposed and reclaimed textiles, incorporating embroidery, rust dyeing, and “natural ink” she makes from organic materials. From early on she painted, drew and made collages. She studied social theory and political administration, worked in non-profit arts management, at an architecture firm, and in interior design. She became an artist at 50, making collages at her dining room table in Concord.
Merrill’s collages express her inner feelings. Her “artistic career is the silver lining from challenge,” and she loves her profession: “Visual! So much fun, and a haptic experience.” Her Fitchburg entry was part of a larger work. Merill is of Acadian descent, and the piece explores an “excavation of memory and is an expression of facing one’s colonial roots”. Read about the history of the Acadian Diaspora.
Merill founded and initiated Gather 2025, coming in April 2025 – a multi-artist/multi-venue symposium in Greater Boston. More about Merill: YouTube, Instagram, and Three Stones Gallery in Concord.
Liz Foss
Liz Foss is a quilt artist of long standing from the Worcester area. Her work has evolved from traditional to improvisational, and she designs and crafts quilted pieces of all sizes, some meant to be used, or displayed, or both. Liz says that she is inspired by colors and feels that quilts create an emotional aspect that conveys comfort.
Liz worked in the business world but left it behind to become a full-time artist, designing and constructing her creations in her home studio. Now doing what she describes as “living the dream”, she says that in creating her quilts she pursues “a mix of rules and no rules…it’s fun to break the rules!” Liz takes orders on her website, or from Clever Hand Gallery in Wellesley, where she has shown her work for many years.
On October 19-20, see Liz’s quilts at the American Craft Fair at New England Botanic Garden; and Worcester Center for Crafts Holiday Festival November 29-December 1.
Diane T. Francis
Diane T. Francis is an artist/art educator. She says neither is primary – that she’s “something in the middle…an artist who educates…teaches like an artist”, in her job working with middle school children with learning disabilities.
A Brockton native, Diane knew from childhood that she wanted to be an artist, first taking classes at the MFA, then earning a BFA and later a M.Ed. She first fell in love with clay and making sculpture; now she often works in wood, taking inspiration from the wood itself. When traveling locally or abroad, she sketches and photographs, then carves in her home studio, or outside – as she says, “wood is portable”. Prints from her woodcuts are both vibrant and intricate, representational yet with a unique perspective. She is currently experimenting with cutting sections out and working with monoprinting.
Diane has an extensive resume of solo and small group exhibitions and has taught multiple workshops. She is currently in Rolling River Printmakers “In Print Library Tour”, at North Hampton, NH Public Library through 10/30, and represented in a juried exhibition at Zullo Gallery in Medfield through November 2. She loves making art and says it is who she is, “If I could give you anything, it would be a passion. Life’s much easier with a passion.”
More:
Tiny Pricks, Fuller Craft Museum: through November
Massachusetts Quilt Guilds
Society of Art and Crafts
Galleries and Museums – Greater Boston
Art New England
Artscope
Joan Kirschner is a Boston area writer/blogger who reviews books, museum exhibitions, theater, film, music, and travel experiences. Her commentary previously appeared on SonsiWoman.com, UllaPopken.com, WomenofGloucesterCounty.com, Trazzler.com, and IndieReader.com. She attributes a lifelong love of reading and cultural events to parents who encouraged her interests early on. Joan began as a retail and mail order catalog copywriter when typewriters, carbon paper, X-Acto knives, and hot glue were found in advertising offices everywhere. She advanced through the ranks and changes in technology, eventually taking on corporate communications, social media, and digital advertising and promotion. She managed and mentored younger writers, acquired skills in art direction, and had responsibility for print and digital communications reaching millions of customers. Surrounded by the babble of languages in Manhattan and Brooklyn and sympathizing with the challenges of non-English speakers, she earned a certificate in the Teaching of English as Second Language (TESOL) and began teaching and tutoring adults and college students. Joan now works part-time in grants administration, freelances occasionally, and covers books and the arts on her blog.