For Olema resident MaryEllen Hackett, painting is not something done alone in a studio. It is done trailside, while hiking with friends.
“I tend to buy inexpensive brushes because I’m pretty rough on them,” she said. “They get rolled up and thrown into my backpack weekly.”
Her studio consists of a meticulously organized watercolor set, a leather paintbrush case her husband made, and small, pre-taped watercolor paper filed into an organizer. She carries these with her most places.
Hackett’s art show, “Archives,” is on display at the Dance Palace through October. The three-dozen mostly six-inch watercolor and gouache pieces depict local scenes and some from travels and artist-in-residence stays, all made with an incredibly steady hand.
Growing up on Long Island, Hackett mostly drew horses and birds from pictures and magazines, and she learned about national parks from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. When she was in middle school, an artist neighbor gave her a 24-palette paint set and real watercolor paper.
“He took me seriously and made me feel like I was a serious painter,” she said. Her parents, who both worked in medicine, were supportive and encouraged her to pursue art.
While studying painting and printmaking at Adelphi University in New York, Hackett worked at the lighthouse at Fire Island National Seashore. “I did my first landscape paintings there, and it just clicked,” she said. “It felt very natural. I had gone through still lifes and portraiture and everything else in college, but when I was painting what I was living, it felt very natural.”
The sketching, planning, and composition she learned as a printmaking major informs her process today. She often plans out her pieces with sketches and makes color notes before painting. Though her final products are incredibly detailed, she finds painting from photos too confining.
“As I am getting older and more time is passing, I am aware that we forget and that our new, most-recent experiences become what we remember,” she said. The title of her show is a nod to her belief in art as documentation. Painting, for Hackett, is about remembering.
The exhibition runs through Oct. 31 in the Dance Palace lobby, open Mondays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. An artist reception takes place on Saturday, Oct. 24 from 2 to 4 p.m. Caitlin Sullivan is the Dance Palace’s administrative coordinator. She lives in Inverness Park.