by Rick Winterson
First, a few facts:
For the last 21 years, the residential community of Marina Bay in Quincy has held an area-wide art exhibition called “Arts Affair at Marina Bay”. Their 2017 Arts Affair exhibition was their 22nd; it took place last Saturday and Sunday, August 5-6. This exhibition attracted a total of 165 works of art from 80 artists, who are members of 21 artists’ associations in Eastern Massachusetts. Four of these associations are located within the City of Boston. All in all, it was quite a show, held in really eye-catching surroundings.
South Boston Online is pleased to report that four members of our own SBAA (the South Boston Arts Association, presided over by watercolorist Dan McCole from The Distillery) exhibited in the 2017 Arts Affair last weekend. Even more important, all four of these local talents received awards – two of those four SBAA member artists garnered two awards, for a total of six.
Interestingly, the Arts Affair at Marina Bay exhibition features a section of “original” creations that are actually intentional copies of well-known works of art rendered by the artists in the exhibition. This section is entitled “Fabulous Fakes”, and not to worry – they are plainly labeled as fakes and are sized differently than the originals. All of these Fabulous Fakes are assembled with both humor and expertise, along with great respect for the original works. The idea of Fabulous Fakes is (in part) the brain child of the SBAA’s President Dan McCole, who teamed up with Dan Meyers of the Quincy Art Association in 2015. They developed the Fabulous Fakes concept and subsequent showings.
The four award recipients who are members of the SBAA include Evelyn “Evie” Johnson. She received a First Prize for her watercolor “Resting” and an Honorable Mention for her Fabulous Fake of Winslow Homer’s “The Whittling Boy”. Dan McCole also received two Awards – a Third Prize for his Fabulous Fake of Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom of Speech” and an Honorable Mention for his watercolor, “Lighthouse on the Rocks”. Deb Putnam got an Honorable Mention for the striking oil painting she calls “Out of the Blue”; photographer Judith Sweeney was awarded an Honorable Mention for her excellent black-and-white capture of “Old Mill Duck Pond”.
As all of us are well aware, South Boston is known for many, many good things. Not the least of these is South Boston’s role as a highly creative art colony – one of the largest (and one of the most successful) in all of New England. Congratulations to our four award-winning artists from the SBAA, who exhibited in the 2017 “Arts Affair at Marina Bay”.
