From lens to canvas

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Courtesy photo
Gail Hoar will exhbit her artwork at the Jaffrey Civic Center through March.

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Courtesy photo
Gail Hoar will exhbit her artwork at the Jaffrey Civic Center through March. Shown is Canyonlands.

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Jessie Salisbury photo
Gail Hoar will display her artwork in the lower floor gallery of the Jaffrey Civic Center through March.

Enlarge,

Courtesy photo
Gail Hoar will exhbit her artwork at the Jaffrey Civic Center through March.

Enlarge-

If you go

Exhibit of artwork by Gail Hoar

WHEN: Through March 30. Hours: Tuesday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m; Wednesday-Friday 1-5 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

WHERE: The Jaffrey Civic Center, at 40 Main St., next to the library, parking is in the rear.

MORE INFORMATION: Call 532-6527, email TO jaffreycnter@aol.com, or visit www.jaffreyciviccenter.com.

WILTON – Artist Gail Hoar said she took about 2,400 photographs, mostly out the car window, during a month-long trip through the southwestern United States last fall. A selection of her paintings inspired by that trip, “Grand Vistas,” is on display in the lower floor gallery of the Jaffrey Civic Center through March.

The oil paintings depict the wide open landscapes, vast skies, and many shades of red of the rocks and spires in Arizona and New Mexico.

“There is something about the southwest,” Hoar said recently in her work room in Wilton Center. “The openness, the sky, the subtlety of the colors in the landscape. The textures and the details are just beautiful.”

Hoar, however, did not paint exactly what she saw in her photographs. She used them for the atmosphere, the colors, the vastness of the landscape, but she “arranged the details to make the patterns” that she wanted: a clump of sagebrush a little bigger for balance, the line of rocks a little different for effect.

“Photos are for reference,” she said. Her artist’s eye made some adjustments.

Hoar has lived in the area since 1985 and has been seriously painting since the 1990s. She grew up on Mercer Island near Seattle, holds a degree in art from the University of Washington, and enjoyed a career in writing and publishing in New York City.

The landscapes are a departure from her usual style. She is known locally for her detailed still lifes for which she has won a number of awards

She established, and organized for several years, the Town Hall Gallery in the entrance to the Wilton town offices which showcases local artists. She has worked with the newsletter “Working On Wilton” and researched a booklet on Wilton’s early schools.

She is a member of the N.H. Art Association and associated with Arts Around Boston. She is getting back into the shows and galleries scene, she said, after taking two years off to work with a friend on a book. That book is in the hands of the publisher but a release date has not been set.

The Jaffrey Civic Center is located at 40 Main St.

For information, call 532-6527, email at jaffreycnter@aol.com, or check the website, www.jaffreyciviccenter.com.