Marguerite Bride
Watercolorist

The Artful Mind  September 2008

By Stanton Kenley

Special to The Artful Mind

     Although she has never set foot in a veterinary school, she has been known to bring dead pets back to life.

     Not a mechanic, she frequently puts bicycles, trucks, and automobiles in a condition that makes their owners happy.

     And, although not an architect, Marguerite Bride has restored some pretty old buildings.

     Plying her skills with palette and paint brush, Bride creates memorable watercolor landscapes, renderings of interesting structures, and custom house portraits from the Berkshires and beyond. Those who see her work in art festivals, shows and galleries, or online, might never guess that Bride is in her third full-time career. But in the past 15 years, painting has grown from a curiosity to a hobby to an obsession, and now to a career.

     Bride has painted and exhibited works from Tuscany, Ireland, and virtually all of New England, especially coastal scenes as well as streetscapes. Her current emphasis is one of her favorite lifetime subjects, the world around her: landscapes, pastoral settings, buildings and downtown scenes within New England, especially the Berkshires. For the past year or so, most of what she calls her freelance work has been from this region.

     Many successful painters will say they knew from the time they picked up a brush that that was what they wanted to do with their lives. Although she was always interested in art, the door didn’t open for Bride until much later. And now, she’s as avid --and busy-- a painter as you are likely to find.

     Speaking of busy: she has already exhibited at four art events and festivals this summer, most notably the prestigious juried shows in Wickford, Rhode Island and Mystic, Connecticut; she was accepted in both of those festivals the first time she applied. And, she has another quartet of events to come before Columbus Day, including a month-long solo exhibit at Museum Facsimiles.

     In addition to the show at Museum Facsimiles (429 North Street in Pittsfield, Sept. 18- Oct. 15) , which features new work that has never been exhibited, she will be painting outdoors Sept. 20-21 at the Lenox Art Festival. Also on her docket are the Hancock Village Country Fair, Sept. 27-28, and the Harvest Festival at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens in West Stockbridge, Oct. 4-5.

     Growing up, Bride hoped she would be involved in art one day, but she took many side trips before finally settling into her favorite career. She often jokes about her 15-year attention span. She first worked as a Registered Nurse, from 1968 until about 1983. She then returned to college to study computer science, working as a software engineer for about 12 years at a networking software company outside Boston. That ended the day she moved to the Berkshires.

     Although computers are still a big part of her life, they are mainly a tool for running her business and helping visualize certain aspects of a painting. But, she never gets very far from them: “The computer is a high tech tool to help me get to a low tech end,” which of course is the painting.  

     In a way, there is no beginning to Bride’s journey from RN to high-techie to individual painter (or “free lance” artist as she sometimes refers to herself). No “eureka” moment that took her from the secure and high-pressured corporate world to the serene (and self-imposed pressure) of artist.

     If anything, it was that high pressure, somewhat relieved when “the baby” went off to college, that helped open the door to this new facet of her life. Upon graduating high school and heading off to study Fine Art (double majoring in Art Education) at UMass, her youngest daughter MaryBeth (“MB”) recommended a hobby. “She knew I liked to draw. And, she knew I needed some stress relief. The mother of a classmate of hers was taking lessons, and MB said we should look into it together.” 

     Bride was already in her second career --software engineering-- at the time, a very stressful job with long commutes, and long hours. “I decided that it would be nice to have a hobby, and so MB’s recommendation fit right in. I was interested in what she was doing, and I wished I could do it, too.” There was no thought of becoming a serious artist, “it was just stress relief.”

     That instructor was an accomplished artist named Merilyn Rock, who is often seen on the show circuit at prestigious venues such as the Wickford Art Festival, and who would come into her life again many years in the future. At that point, though, there was no thought of leaving software engineering, no plan to move to the Berkshires, it was just relief.

     But, those first lessons “totally changed my life.”

     Her first piece of art shown in public was actually at a juried show during that same timeframe. Besides studying with Rock, Bride was taking drawing lessons at the Worcester Art Museum, when a show called “In Our Own Time” was announced. Hundreds of hobbyists from several regional employers entered their work, with 100-150 selected.  One of her paintings was shown for a month at the Transportation Center in Boston. Based on a magazine photograph, the painting was a serene sunset scene featuring a boat in an Alaskan bay (her husband Ed, a former Navy man, says it’s one of his favorites, and she insists that it will never be sold. He agrees).

     Fast forward to 2008: it was one of Bride’s proudest moments to see Merilyn Rock for the first time in more than 15 years, when they both were exhibiting at Wickford this past summer. On opposite sides of the street, they are certainly on the same track.

     After purchasing a home in the Berkshires in 1994, Bride spent the first couple of years just dabbling in painting, spending more time getting to know their new home, gardens, and the Lenox community, where they settled-in for about 10 years. She started taking lessons with artist Pat Hogan, and “that’s when I got my first taste of watercolor.” She had never touched watercolors before, and thought she might enjoy the medium.

     Bride took classes at IS183 (then called Interlaken) in Housatonic, and also studied privately with Hogan. After reaching a point of knowing technique, she was becoming aware that she had never really studied foundational subjects, “the basics.” Bride realized she needed more formal education and matriculated at Berkshire Community College, where she took just about every art and graphics course that was offered.

     Bride considers Pat Hogan to be her finest art teacher ever. Even so, “Pat and I have totally different styles.” Bride is a “small-brush painter,” preferring to show fine details. She is not an architectural painter or photo-realist; there is plenty of room for interpretation and imagination in her work, which is nonetheless considered representational. Hogan’s watercolor style, on the other hand, has a breezier, sweeping touch, with “wet, juicy paintings that deal with the overall impact of a painting, rather than the detail.”

     This distinction is important to Bride, who eschews group-painting workshops because of the danger that the resultant works might resemble each other. Studying technique with someone like Hogan is far different from everyone in a class working on the same image.

     There are a lot of workshops available locally, but she avoids them. “I took lessons in techniques, and did book learning, and practiced and practiced; it took many years before my style found me. The way I paint is truly my own style. I don’t copy anybody else’s style, and it is certainly not a result of my going to anybody else’s workshop and seeing someone else paint.” Nor should it be, she adds. In fact, that’s one of the concerns she had about attending these workshops: “I don’t want to come out and paint like somebody else. I need to do my own thing.”

     So, while she has taken very few painting workshops, she has studied various aspects of technique, including perspective. After discovering she has an astigmatism, she studied with Dave McCandless, a true inspiration and mentor who passed away in August of this year. McCandless was an active member of the Housatonic Valley Art League, and was always willing to share his secrets, she adds. “I needed his help straightening my lines and getting things plumb.”

     A detail-oriented painter, she’ll spend a goodly amount of time on doorknobs and windowpanes. “Pat Hogan didn’t teach me to paint the way she paints, she taught me techniques. I applied those techniques to the way I want to paint.”

     It was 1999 before Bride established herself in any gallery. In Great Barrington, there was a new cooperative art gallery known as Berkshire Dreams, and she brought some of her paintings in for evaluation. They liked her work, and if anything, this marked the beginning of her new career.

     “I made some new lifelong friends at Berkshire Dreams,” she recalls. Her first show involved two other female artists, and was called “Three Visions.” Each artist interpreted the same setting in different ways, using different mediums. Bride was the watercolorist; Diane Firtell’s work was oil/pastel/photography collage, and Vivian DesGeorges did mixed-media/cutout collage. It was one of her most successful shows, even to now, and the artists registered many sales, starting with opening night.

     The experience was confidence-building, and Bride still misses Berkshire Dreams, which closed in 2002 when proprietress Elizabeth Brown left the area.

     Meanwhile, she has had solo exhibits and group shows in about 10 galleries, and still counting.

     Another significant part of her painting is commissioned work, typically house portraits, and the territory for that work knows no bounds. Since she loves to paint buildings, it was natural to establish herself in this specialty, although it happened quite by accident.

     A godchild requested a building portrait as her wedding gift. It wasn’t her own home, but a cottage in the Cotswolds that she had seen on her honeymoon in England. And thus, a new sub-specialty was established. She painted every house where she had lived, then her parents’ home, and for awhile, personal house paintings became Christmas presents.

     It finally struck her that there could be a market for something she enjoyed doing, and she was right. Besides commissions, the experience led to more than house portraits. “That’s how I discovered how much I like to paint buildings.”

     “Local Color” and “Berkshires and Beyond” are two frequent themes of her exhibits. The latter has become more important of late, not just from personal interest but due to the fact that she is participating in more art festivals in places like Mystic and Wickford, where people want to take home some of those environs and hang them on a wall. “An artist has an ability to maintain a memory for a buyer. The process they go through in selecting a painting is fascinating. From evoking a favorite moment to matching the paint of a renovated room, each individual’s experience is as unique as the painting.” But seldom does a tourist at an art show in Mystic purchase a painting of the apple orchards of Williamstown or a Housatonic River farmstead, she notes. “Paint the scene that’s seen,” she quips.

 
Imagine (or not) This Building…

     One artifact is common among the buildings she paints: age. “I tend to favor the old home, whether I’m creating it for a show or a commissioned house portrait.” Techniques that she has learned over the years help make a building look decrepit, and “that’s more fun than painting beautiful, symmetrical clapboards and windows.” The touch of the brush, the movement of the paint, comes from the years of doing this work: how much water to apply, which brush to use. In fact, she creates effects with other tools: fingers, sticks, the other end of the paint brush, needles; she may scratch the paper. She may use a sturdy paper like 300lb cold press, “because you can really abuse it.” At that point, not only does the building look decrepit, but the paper is decrepit, too, she says, half-jokingly.

    “Older buildings speak to me, I can imagine their story.” Sometimes, she doesn’t need to imagine it, however. With any house portrait, “I like to understand where the people are coming from; did they raise children in the house, for example. One woman told me how she rocked her grandchildren on the front porch; I thought of that through the whole painting, especially when I was painting the porch. I could imagine her sitting there, rocking those babies.”

     This work is personal for her. She feels close to the family and the structure, “like a house nanny.”And oh, yes, although the rocking chair was not in the photos or original sketch of that house, it made its way into the painting.

     Other artifacts that Bride has introduced into house portraits are long-gone pets, old trucks, antique sleds, and one that even included a cat in a tree, which most viewers would need a magnifying glass to find. But, the owner knows where it is. “I’ve brought many dogs back to life,” she quips. She can make it snow, and is often called upon to do so.

     One woman commissioned four paintings of the home where she had raised her three children, who were now young adults and leaving home. Each born in a different season, each child received a different painting of the home in that season. Plus a fourth for the mother (a Christmas setting with candles in the window).

     Conversely, there was another assignment from four children who had been raised in ranch house that their parents were selling. The children all pitched-in for the gift, and “That painting probably meant more to me, and certainly to the kids, than so many of the stately mansions that I’ve painted.”

     Her most unusual assignment was a cabin in Norway, done from photographs, a special surprise present from a doctor to his wife. This was one of perhaps 75 house portraits, 50 of which can be seen on her web site, www.MargeBride.com. Even though not for sale to others, the assortment is like a portfolio, so clients can consider orientation, season, setting, time of day, and so forth.

     Some artists would prefer not to do commissions, but Bride loves to paint buildings, “and why not paint a building that will give someone else some joy, too?” Artists don’t necessarily paint because they want to keep the painting, they paint what moves them. “My whole enjoyment comes from the painting process. Once it is finished, it’s not mine anymore, it is ready to go live with someone else. I paint for the enjoyment it gives me, not to keep the painting.”

Art On The Web

     Bride’s web site comes into far more use than just posting samples; it is a hub of commerce. It fascinates many people that someone would actually purchase something, especially one-of-a-kind art, based on seeing it on the Internet (although she hastens say that she provides an unconditional guarantee of satisfaction).

     To this end, people have found her work in the most unusual ways. For example, one woman who had returned from Tuscany was looking for a place to buy Pecorino cheese online; a Google search found a Bride painting called “Pecorino Cheese,” which she had done after a vacation/painting trip to that popular, scenic region of Italy. “I don’t know if she ever found the cheese, but she bought my painting.”

     Not too cheesy.

     This has happened time and again, selling works to people she’s never met. “People come upon my paintings in the oddest way. Another man was looking for some Hebert candy, and found my painting of the Hebert Candy Mansion on that company’s web site.” Part of a series on historic buildings in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, the Hebert company liked the painting so much that they use it in their catalog; and, while the original was not available, the man looking for the candy purchased a print of the building.

     The series, comprising eight images of historic settings in Shrewsbury, was commissioned by a credit union in 2001, after a competitive call for artists and adjudication. The originals all hang in the credit union’s corporate offices in Shrewsbury, but prints are still regularly sold online. With its fieldstone front and old New England character, the print of Hebert’s headquarters is one of her most popular.

     Pretty tasty.

     Another serendipity sale came from a person who had visited an abbey in Tuscany, did a Google search on that abbey, and found Bride’s painting. The original had been sold, and so she painted another, which one supposes makes that work a hybrid of freelance and custom.

     “Regardless of your business, a web site is a necessity. It’s a portfolio, a sampler, a marketing tool, and a selling tool.” It is a major asset for any painter interested in boosting retail business, as well as commissioned work, she says.  

     On her choice of medium, Bride recalls that she did some oils in school, but eventually the smell of oils just got to her. “I wanted another solution, tried acrylics, but didn’t care for them, either. So, I tried watercolors.” She discovered that “you can really push watercolors, to the point that they even look like oils. But then, I also realized that one of the reasons I liked watercolors so much is that they are different, and I liked that.” They’re also not as messy, she adds.

     She has just recently begun to give lessons. Not classroom-style, more like consultations. “I don’t think of myself as an art teacher, but I’m happy to sit down and share techniques.”

     Computers can be intimidating to the uninitiated, and Bride can see how difficult it can be for people who have never used them to embrace them. “I’m really glad that I learned about PCs when they were in their infancy, and my knowledge grew as the industry grew. It’s a wonderful tool for me.” Among other functions, they have been a great assistance in the pre-painting process, she explains: the drawing and value studies. She will take a digital photo of a scene, remove or tinker with the color, check the lines, and shadows. “Technology is a great asset in the planning process, just as it is with an architect or a musician. It will never replace drawing or painting, at least not for me, but I couldn’t do what I do today without digital tools. My business could not survive without my computer.”

     Besides her work at the easel, she developed her own web site, and in fact has developed web sites for others, though she typically does not seek that kind of work. But in the Berkshires, many artists find themselves working in two or more disciplines, and Bride feels fortunate to have the technical grounding to keep those discrete disciplines within the art world.

     This sort of varied professional interest must be hereditary: she caught it from her three children, all grown and living independently. A daughter in eastern Massachusetts is a software engineer; another in California was the art education major and is currently teaching; and the oldest, a son, has gone back to college and is shifting from a music career to one in environmental science.

     There is no nurse in the brood, yet, but she apparently passed her own artistic genes upward, as her father started painting at the age of 90 and continued until his demise this year at the age of 94. He was, in fact, her first student. Painting gave him great joy, and prints and notecards of his work are now shared among his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. And, if you look hard enough, on her web site.

     Bride has been active in the Housatonic Valley Art League since 2003, and has just completed her tenure on its Board. She co-chaired the public relations effort for the league’s Housatonic River Summer 2004 with her husband, a PR consultant to high-tech and arts organizations (and chair of the Pittsfield CityJazz Festival). They collaborate on some projects, such as Pittsfield’s recent Art of the Game celebration of baseball. A Pittsfield resident since 2004, Bride is on the Board of the Berkshire Art Association, and is on the committee (and has co-chaired) the Pittsfield Art Show. She also does PR for other artists and galleries, and also copy-edits many of the articles in The Artful Mind.

     Spare time? It was a short conversation, but much of her leisure time is gladly spent exploring the work of colleagues in galleries and other shows. “This has been a busy year,” she acknowledges, “and I need to make more time away from the studio.” That time is likely to be spent near a seacoast, with camera in one hand and sketchpad in the other. “Getting totally away from art would be like leaving the planet. I see art in everything.”

     Marguerite Bride has found a career where work is enjoyment. She’s happy to continue bringing pets to life, and rocking chairs to otherwise empty porches. It’s an artistic pursuit that one trusts will never end.

     Of course, there’s always veterinary school.

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