Plein Air Festival brings artistic talent to town by the dozens

by Dan McClelland

Amateur but often very accomplished artists from all over the country converged on Tupper Lake to fashion on canvass and paper their images of local scenery and familiar vistas last week as part of Tupper Arts’ third annual Plein Air Festival.

Beginning Wednesday keen artists and their easels were parked all over the community creating their pieces of art in oil, watercolor, pen and pastel.

Three of them that day used the parking lot pull-off on Route 30 near Rock Island Bay. All three were focused on the big lake and island in front of them, framed by shorelines of evergreens.

Cheryl Simeone of Three Mile Bay on Lake Ontario, just south of Cape Vincent, said she has been painting “practically here entire life and she loves it.”

She was an art teacher, now retired, at Homer Intermediate School, and this was her first visit to Tupper Art’s early autumn Plein Air. She said she was impressed by its organization.

“I’m planning on coming back next year.”

Painting 20 feet from Cheryl was Jan Byington who was attending her first Plein Air here but who has attended the Saranac Lake event several times in the past. Jan resides in Clayton, N.Y.

Her hometown also sports its own Plein Air event in August each year, she told the Free Press Wednesday.

She said she was looking forward to Friday’s reception at Tupper Arts’ headquarters on Park Street to visit with the other artists and take in their artistic entries.

Jan had just placed her initial brush strokes when we stopped by to visit.

In the third spot on the pull-off area was Lynda Mussen, also making her first visit to the local event.

“I moved to the North Country about five years ago and started my new career in painting.

She said she began her earlier careers, first as a scenic set designer and later as a teacher of English As A Second Language.

Of the change in career into education, Lynda said she followed her mother’s advice of pursuing “something you can always fall back on”- and teaching certainly fit that bill.

She is originally from Long Island but her family moved to Ohio when she was 13, so there’s little left of the Long Island accent.

“I lived in the midwest until I met my husband and we worked in the theater together. I was always in set design and my husband built scenery sets for television and Broadway productions.”

“I free-lanced on Broadway for a few years, assisting some set designers and did some Off-Broadway shows. But I never really made the leap!”

Closer to town Thursday, on a pull-off on The Flow, were three more artists, all getting ready to begin their works.

First was Katherine LaPointe of Potsdam, who didn’t think she was related to any of the Tupper Lake LaPointes.

Katherine is a graphic designer by trade and is a veteran of all three of Tupper Arts annual shows.

Each year, she said, she has painted scenes of The Flow, noting “I figure I’d keep it up tis year.”

She describes herself as an impressionist.

Lisa Burger Lentz of Media, PA, just west of Philadelphia, described her art as what is typically done outside.

She explained that Plein Air is a French Canadian term that is loosely translated as “outside.”

“The rules for an event like this is to paint outside,” Lisa explained.

Set up beside Lisa was Laura Martinez-Bianco from Marlboro, N.Y. Laura was sketching with pastel crayons.

“Right now I’m just organizing them before I start because they are a mess,” she said with a grin.

Besides making art with pastels, she also does works with classic bees wax encaustic paint. “You use torches and heat guns. It’s a lot of fun when it’s really cold and you can’t come outside and do this.”

“Instead of having a palette set, up, you use a griddle and you put your paints and waxes on it!”

Laura has a studio in her hometown in the Hudson Valley about a half an hour south of Kingston, N.Y.

“I’ve painted in the Adirondack Festival. I’ve painted at a Keeseville event. This year I thought I’d go try Tupper Lake,” she explained, adding, “I’m enjoying it!”

Lita Thorn set up her easel Wednesday next to her van along Demars Blvd. with a view of the former Oval Wood Dish Corp. complex.

This is the third year she and her husband, Bruce, have attended Tupper Lake’s Plein Air.

“My husband and I both like coming here!”

The Thorns live in Harriman, N.Y.

Lita said she was aware of the history of the former industrial complex and the new plans to develop it into apartments.

“That’s why I’m painting it,” she admitted.

“Every time we’ve come to Tupper Lake we drive by it and I decided I have to paint it this year.”

Bruce Thorn set up his chair and easel on Lake Street Wednesday across from Steve Wilson’s dentist office and was painting the former Root family home on the corner of Lake Street and Wawbeek Ave., a stately structure now a Sunmount community residence.

“In past years we did a bunch of landscape stuff” and this year we thought we’d try buildings, he told the Free Press.

“We love coming here to paint!”

This year’s Plein Air Festival was the best attended yet, with nearly three dozen artists participating.

“There were 34 artists who registered, but two had to drop out,” Tupper Arts President Susan Delehanty reported Monday. The artist total exceeded last year’s which exceeded the event when it was held the first year.

“We had a lot of new artists this year. One woman came all the way from Dallas, Texas!”

“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from the artists on our event this year,” she noted.

A number of the pieces generated by the Plein Air artists were sold at the artists’ reception Friday night and in the days since.

Mrs. Delehanty said Tupper Arts offered all the artists the opportunity to leave their works on display at the gallery so the public could enjoy them in the weeks and months ahead and most of the artists took the organization up on its offer.

“Most of the artists left their art with us. We’ll have it hanging in our gift shop or in our gallery over the winter” so people here can enjoy it and possibly buy some of it, she explained.

Mrs. Delehanty said the quality of the works this year was impressive. “Some of these people have been creating art for years and many attend Plein Air festivals all over the country.”

At the Plein Air Festival, like all of the art shows and exhibitions each year at Tupper Arts, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of art pieces goes to support the local arts center.