New At Gallery A3. Nancy Meagher’s COLD WATER and MILLICENT

Source: Gallery A3

In COLD WATER and MILLICENT, Nancy Meagher presents oil paintings of water and color pencil drawings from her historical fiction book for children, featuring a fish named Millicent.  The exhibit opens at Gallery A3, 28 Amity Street, on May 5 with an opening reception from 5:00-7:00 p.m. The exhibit will run from May 5-May 28, 2022.  Gallery Hours are Thursday through Sunday 3:00-7:00 p.m.  There will be a free online Art Forum on May 19 at 7:30 p.m.  Register at www.gallerya3.com

COLD WATER and MILLICENT
Unearthing older paintings—some from at least four years ago—Nancy Meagher breathes fresh life, new vision, and an evolved wisdom into large-scale, luminous works of art, some stretching four by three feet. With images of Puffers Pond and Leverett Pond, favorite haunts for the past ten years, the cold water and deep shadows beg us to search for the perfect place to enter the painting. Using rich oil pigments, a variety of stiff and razor-edged palette knives, and a large paint brush inherited from a recently passed dear friend, Meagher moves boldly into abstraction. She builds up many layers with paint that is coarsely applied, carved, and striated.

With MILLICENT, Meagher lures us across the Connecticut River to Northampton, and invites us to swim not only upstream, but also back in time to the year 1874. In her historical fiction story book for children, Millicent and the Day it Rained Buttons, a Mill River Fish Tale, a spotted fish learns to love the “skin she’s in” and, with the help of two real-life Mill River Button Company girls, teaches about the tragedy of the Williamsburg Dam Flood.  

A passionate storyteller, Meagher envisions “the past” everywhere and that gives “daily-life” its energy. A shallow pond “runs deep” because the Earth is ancient. “I feel that energy everywhere,” the artist explains. Celebrating the “cold water of life with a splash,” Meagher revives some of her older paintings and, in her new non-fiction book, revisits the lives of two mill girls from Northampton’s past.

Art Forum Online 
In an Art Forum Online on Thursday, May 19 at 7:30 pm, Meagher will discuss her artwork, read excerpts from Millicent and the Day It Rained Buttons, and welcome questions and discussion with the audience. See the gallery website (www.gallerya3.com) to register for this online event, which is free and open to the public. This program is supported in part by a grant from the Amherst Cultural Council, a local agency, which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. Register at www.gallerya3.com