Gallery Reception for Painter Bella Hallsted

Source: amherstma.gov

The town will host a gallery reception for painter Bella Hallsted at Town Hall, 6 Boltwood Avenue on Friday October 20 from 4:30 p.m to 6:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Please use the Main Street entrance. Hallsted’s paintings will be on display at Town Hall throughout the month of October.

Hallsted offers the following comments on her work:

I have sketched and painted on and off all my life. My siblings and I grew up under the spell and at the elbow of my grandfather, painter Charles Hopkinson, who did portraits for a living and watercolors for pleasure and because of his great love of nature. As children, none of us escaped: either we posed for him or watched spellbound as he measured his brush against the distance between himself and the spectacular ocean views where he lived, catching the light.

As an adult I chose writing as my career and taught writing classes at universities and workshops. I returned to painting in 1997 as a departure from the demands of writing. I began with oil landscapes. I would rush to the edge of my favorite meadow exhilarated by the color and fast changing light attempting to capture the essence of the view.