Attention all Veggie Gardeners
The Food Pantry Needs Fresh Food.
If you have a surplus of fruits or veggies from your garden please call
Lori Baldwin at 364-7715. She will come and pick-up your donation. The
pantry is open every 2nd & 4th Saturday of the month.
Fall Baseball
Gilmanton Youth Organization (Suncook Valley/ Lakes Region) is forming
an 11/12 year old wooden bat fall baseball team. (70’ Diamond). Need to be
eligible for Cal Ripken or Little League in the 2010 season. Go to
leaguelineup.com/gyo-baseball for more information or email
[email protected].
We will play in the GSBA league.
Celebrate the Gift of Life and come to the American Red Cross
Blood Drive being held at the Pittsfield Elementary School on
Monday, August 10, 2009, from 2 to 7 p.m. The Drive is sponsored by
the Elementary School Parent Teacher’s Organization. Childcare will
be provided. A special incentive - make it a sweet summer - give the
gift of life and enjoy life’s sweet rewards, courtesy of Friendly’s
Ice Cream.
All presenting donors in the month of August will receive a coupon for a
free carton of Friendly’s Ice Cream!
Gilmanton Old Home Day Art Show Update
Old Home Day, August 15 will soon be here! Area artists welcome!
An earlier article failed to mention that a fourth category, sculpture is
included as usual. Bring your entries Thursday, August 13, to Smith Meeting
House, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Not over 3 entries per artist. Painting, photos, graphics, sculpture.
We are honored to be featuring Barbara Clairmont Gray of Gilmanton.
Barbara Clairmont Gray, Oil Painter
Barbara Clairmont Gray, who usually signs her work BCGrary, is a
Gilmanton, NH, painter who captures what others see all the time but perhaps
are so accustomed to seeing that they don’t see at all. Her work is
rich in color and texture, in patterns.
“My work is about color and about paint, about surface and texture. It’s
about the shapes and beauty of negative space. I don’t want my work to look
like a photograph, and if it does, I consider the painting a failure. I want
my paintings to look like paint. I strive to put paint together in a way
that delights the senses through the unexpected use of color. The way I
paint is not necessarily what is in front of me but more about how I choose
to interpret what I see. I strive to capture the beauty of the everyday. If
there is no beauty to be gleaned from the ugly, my tendency is to completely
ignore it.”
But find beauty she does, not only in the daylilies that fill her
dooryard, but also in the area farms and barns and silos, in the telephone
poles that march silently along the edges of rural roads and byways. “The
world is changing faster than some of would like. I’ve been spending the
summer capturing some of the aspects of a changing landscape that one day
will be gone forever. It doesn’t have to be a charming vista. It’s all about
the paint, about the texture and the use of color, about the creation of
something lasting and beautiful. My attempt is to extract the beauty of
color and concentrate solely on that. This might be something as simple as a
picket fence, or daylilies, whether on a rainy morning or in shade or full
sunlight, or a particular slant of the light in August and how that light
influences local color.”
Barbara has been involved in art since her childhood. In high school her
classmates voted her Most Artistic. While friends earned money babysitting
and mowing lawns, Barbara was accepting commissions to do portraits and
hand-painted signs for area restaurants and businesses; she was showing and
selling her still-lifes and landscapes. Later she studied fine art at the
University of Massachusetts and at Rhode Island School of Design. She
graduated university magna cum laude.
When asked how she works Barbara responds: “I do a lot of small pencil
sketches. Later, I’ll select a sketch that I might like for its composition
and potential for color and texture. Then I’ll paint a number of small
studies in oils - like Monet with his water lilies and haystacks and bridge.
The study that I most like will become a larger painting.”
“My painting is continually evolving. I don’t paint in any one set
fashion which I think is limiting oneself. I tend to paint in batches,
concentrating on a particular approach to my paintings in one batch of
perhaps 5 or 10 painting, then experiment with an entirely different
approach in my next batch. I never settle into any one way to paint which I
think is limiting oneself artistically. I am constantly learning and pushing
myself to explore something new, which I think is the way one grows as a
painter.”
As adept with a hammer and a saw as with a palette knife and a brush, a
propensity and love for which she is quick to credit her builder
grandfather, Barbara designs and builds shingle designs, things like life
size Canada Geese and Mallard Ducks out of white and red cedar shingles that
grace the gables of shingle-style lake front homes in the area - along the
shores of Squam Lake and Winnipesaukee and Alton Bay, near Sawyer Lake and
on the home she shares with her husband and family on Meadow Pond. There are
also small songbirds that perch on the top corner edge of a window or door
frame and even a gilded hummingbird in flight for low on the siding by the
daylilies. Canada Geese are popular in New Hampshire and over the years
she’s built a design in every exposure imaginable, noting that her designs
must not only be beautiful but, like the shingled wooden siding around them,
must also overlap and shed water. Her paintings have been in galleries and
shows throughout New England as well as on the cover of a magazine, and
she’s won numerous awards.
“I’d like to concentrate solely on my painting,” Barbara says, admitting
that working on a shingle design from high aloft in the lift of a bucket
truck is something she’d increasingly rather forego at this point in her
life, especially in less than favorable weather, her husband watching
nervously from far below, preferring instead to paint on location or from
the comforts of her own studio.
Barbara paints mostly on commission with works ranging in price from
$500 for her smallest works to $2500 and up for works 36x36 and larger, but
she sometimes will offer a painting without charge. “The way that works is
that by mutual prearrangement I’ll stay at someone’s main residence or
vacation home when the home is empty and while they are away and stay
anywhere from a week to up to a month painting their house, their views,
their gardens. Later they get first pick of any one of the body of paintings
I created while at their residence, something I call my Artist in Residence
program. Arrangements can be made up to a year or more in advance.
In her spare time, Barbara enjoys gardening and tending her small flock
of hens, both of which routinely make their way into her paintings, and she
loves spending time with her husband, family and friends. A sample of her
work can be viewed at Gilmanton Old Home Day Art Show at the Smith Meeting
House on August 15 from 9 a.m. to close where Barbara is this year’s feature
artist. To inquire about a commission or about her Artist in Residence
program, Barbara can be reached via email at
[email protected]
Librarian to be Welcomed at GYRLA Annual Meeting
At its annual meeting, the members of the Gilmanton Year-Round Library
Association will welcome their new librarian, Gary Mason, who has already
begun work to prepare the library for opening in mid-September.
The meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 10, 7 p.m. at the Library on
Route 140, opposite the Gilmanton School. The Board urges all members to
attend, and welcomes Gilmanton residents and friends to join them to meet
the librarian and learn more about plans for readying the library to serve
the people of Gilmanton.
The agenda includes election of officers and board members to the Board,
reports from the officers and committees and plans for an opening
celebration. The meeting will be concluded with the traditional “make your
own” ice cream sundaes, along with a chance to tour the library and informal
discussion of future options.
Fall 2009 Gilmanton Youth Organization (GYO) Soccer Sign-Ups
Monday, Aug. 10th, 6-7 p.m., Gilmanton School.
Saturday, Aug.15th, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.,
Gilmanton Old Home Day, (Smith Meeting House).
Wednesday, Aug. 17th, 6-7 p.m., Gilmanton School.
Sign-ups for Gilmanton Youth Soccer are open to Gilmanton children
Kindergarten through 6th grade. Looking for boys and girls to learn
and play soccer, whether you’ve played before or not. Cost is $40 per child
which includes jersey. $50 for late sign-ups (after August 17th) if space
allows. The season runs from late August through early November.
GYO was formed in 1990 to promote athletics, sportsmanship, and
teamwork. We would like you to be part of this great
organization. GYO is always looking for parent volunteers. Even
if you have never coached before, we are always looking for head coaches,
assistant coaches, and other volunteers to help.
If you have any questions, please contact: Phil Eisenmann, Soccer
Coordinator, @ PO Box 476 Gilmanton, NH 03237, 267-7912,
[email protected]
Floor Rug (Cloth) Exhibit At The Gilmanton Corner Public Library
During the month of August, one can view samples of floor rugs also
known as floor cloths. Diane Nyren has chosen this display using a new type
of floor rug material. It eliminates a few hours of work and also adheres to
the floor better. Diane will add, during the month, other interesting table
mats with matching coasters.
Along with her display will be reference books, the history of floor
cloths (rugs) as well as a sign up sheet for classes she will begin in the
fall at the library.
One of her floor rugs, Americana, will be raffled at Old Home Day,
August 15, with raffle tickets available at the Library.