Paint the Town

By Gerald Sharp, PRA Treasurer (with help from the QR code information on the various forms of art available at the exhibition)

This past Labor Day Weekend, the Kensington Armory hosted this year’s Paint the Town art show and sale.  In the mid-1980’s “Art in the Park” was first started, displaying paintings in the gardens.  In 1987 the show was renamed “Paint the Town” with cash prizes, and it became part of Kensington’s Labor Day festivities.  In 1995, some 30 years ago, the show was expanded to its present three-day format from Saturday through Labor Day on Monday, and the show was moved indoors to the Kensington Armory. 

This year, works of art in several categories (Abstract, Kensington, Portrait, Sculpture, Still Life, Landscape, and Photography) were exhibited and sold over the three-day holiday.   Plein Air paintings, usually landscapes, that must be fully painted outdoors without photographs to take into account outdoor lighting, were completed Saturday and were also presented (often still wet) and sold during the show.  The live aspect of this part of the show keeps artists honest in that they cannot just call any landscape they paint “Plein Art”. 

The largest prize each year is the Bertha Clum award for the best in the Kensington Category, paintings that are limited to Kensington landscapes. 

This year’s grand prize winner in the Kensington category was Sam Guindon’s “Obscured”, where the branches obscured this old house in Kensington.

Landscapes are defined as pictures showing natural or man-made scenery.  For example, they may show mountains, forests, beaches, skies, skyscrapers, and cities.  This show had a couple of paintings of cars that were classified as landscapes.  The main idea is that the setting is beautiful or interesting.  Landscapes greatly outnumbered the other categories of pictures at the exhibition.

First Prize winner in Landscapes:  “No Rush in the Weeds”, an acrylic painting by Christina Haslinger.

To view Gerald’s entire report, including the winners in each of the other categories, go to this link.