Maybe when she was a software engineering manager, Marguerite Bride could look at a pretty blue sky and simply see a pretty blue sky, then get on with her day.
But nowadays, now that she's a painter — an accomplished one, with a steady stream of commissions and accolades — she may see some cerulean up there, maybe a little cobalt. It'll all stop her dead in her tracks.

"I look at everything I see now in terms of color and composition," says Bride. "If it's a curse, it's a wonderful curse to have. You start appreciating beauty in things that maybe you would have taken for granted before."

Like, maybe, a dumpy old wheelbarrow leaning up against a building. She can gaze at it nearly to the point of inappropriateness. She could take 40 photos of it for reference for a future painting.

She's drawn by the shadows, mostly. Nothing is better than harsh shadows, says Bride, who stepped out of the shadows of the Berkshire art scene seven years ago to become among the region's most well-known watercolorists.

"In the shadows," she says, "that's where you get the life."

Bride is the featured artist this month and next month in two separate exhibits presented at Banknorth in Great Barrington, sponsored by the Sheffield Art League.

She delights mostly in the brick and mortar of human history. Of the 300 or so paintings she's done, many are familiar images to any Berkshirite — old mills in Lee, street scenes in Lenox, old barns from one end of the county to the other — as well as scenes from Tuscany and points throughout New England.

There's nothing sentimental or over romanticized in her artwork, most of which is rendered in earth tones. She simply finds contentment — even amusement — in the hard, right angles that farmers and factory owners long ago so strong-mindedly appended to these soft, curving hills. Her painting are her sign of affection.

Why buildings?

"I think they have life," says Bride, 58, who lives in Pittsfield. "Especially when they're old or dilapidated. They have a history, and that's what I like about them. They are like living things. When I'm painting them, I get to know them.

"The other thing is, I just like the texture of painting buildings," she says. "More than painting leaves or grass or flowers. I like the rough stuff of rocks and stone and brick."

That puts her squarely in the building trades, so to speak. Indeed, much of Bride's success has come in the form of painting house portraits on commission, which can cost anywhere between $500 to $1,200.

Not bad for someone who all but abandoned art by the ripe old age of 17.

Bride, who was raised in Rhode Island, grew up drawing with her mother, who had planned a future education for her at the Rhode Island School of Design.

"But when I was a junior in high school I had a change of heart. I said, "I don't want to draw anymore. I want to make some money. And I want to marry a doctor," she says, with a laugh.

She went to nursing school. She worked as an RN. She never married a doctor. She married a navel officer-turned writer, instead, named Ed Bride, who served as a writer, editor and publisher of Computerworld and founding editor of Software Magazine before going into public relations consulting for high-tech companies.

The two had three children. Seeing her kids' college tuitions looming in the future, Marguerite changed career paths again. She got an education in computer science. She worked in the computer industry from 1986 to 1994.

Then, in 1994, the Brides bought an old farmhouse in Lenox and soon moved out here fulltime to escape what she calls the "rat race" of eastern Massachusetts.

That's when Bride decided it was time for another change. She wanted to return to art. She started taking classes at Interlaken School of Art in Stockbridge, now called IS 183.

"I realized I didn't even have the basics," recalls Bride. "I drew a lot as a kid, but I didn't have the basics.

"Oh boy, I knew what a primary color was, but I didn't know how to mix secondary colors, tertiary colors or any of those things. I didn't even know whether I should be doing oils or acrylics or watercolors. I knew nothing about it. I didn't know the principals of perspective."

So she went to Berkshire Community College and eventually took every art course they offered.

"Once I cleared them out of all of their courses, that's when I said, "OK, time to get to work," says Bride.

She painted for several years, keeping her work to herself, until, as she says, her style found her. Then, one day in 1999, she got up the nerve — barely. A new gallery was opening up in Great Barrington called Berkshire Dreams, which has since closed. Bride walked in, showed them her work, and they liked it a lot.

Soon her works were hanging, publicly. And soon she was selling pieces, which gave her newfound confidence.

That's when she began to do house portraits, too. And that's how she found her niche doing buildings.

In 2001, Bride competed for, and was awarded, the commission for eight paintings of historic scenes, which are now on permanent public display at the Shrewsbury headquarters of Central One Credit Union. She was on her way.

Berkshire Frame Works continues to display her original paintings, as well as reproductions. Original works can also be seen at Boulderwood, in Lenox.

Big sellers for her include her many Tuscany scenes. She's been painting Tuscany for years and has had two separate shows of that work.

Oddly enough, she's only been to Tuscany once. It was just after 9/11, and she and her husband had a "life's-too-short" moment and got on a plane. She took hundreds of photographs, which have since become subjects. Again, lots of buildings. Like the Berkshire buildings, they are mysterious. They don't so much stake a claim upon the landscape as become an integral part of it, an indomitable truth, like the passing of time.

Is there something she's trying to communicate in her work?

"No," she says, "I just love to paint. I have reached a point in my life where it has become something I absolutely love to do. I paint what I like to see, and usually it's something that makes me happy."

As for the Banknorth show, this month features Bride's local scenes, including the old Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington and images depicting the beauty of northern Berkshires and nearby New York. The feature in February will be a selection of paintings from her Tuscany collection.

Bride is a board member of the Sheffield Art League, which has a membership of more than 250. She also provides technical and publicity consultation to other artists interested in promoting their work. She uses her high-tech skills to help many of them start their own Web sites and get their work in digital format.

"There's such an abundance of good artists out here," says Bride, who moved from Lenox to Pittsfield last year. "I made a lot of nice artist friends."

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