Featured Local Artists

Our blog and social media have unfortunately been quiet over the last couple of months, but in that silence, big changes have been occurring at our office.

Our current Office Manager, Jerrica, has been finalizing her plans to attend business school in the fall, and will be leaving our lovely little town for Rochester, NY. One of our major tasks has been to find a suitable replacement, and we feel we have; we’ll let her introduce herself in a blog post.  Keep an eye out for one during the first week in June.

Also, our featured local artist, Hilary Emerson Lay, has moved out to Colorado for a summer artist residency program. We miss having her art in our office, but we love her updates on Twitter and her blog, With One Smile.

Our walls are now decorated with Salem artist, Maryclaire Wellinger, who focuses on Oil Paint and her garden as inspiration. In her own words, her Deconstructing the Garden series “perceives the cosmology of a squash vine or an heirloom tomato plant.” Her paintings are full of life, color, and texture.  Needless to say, we have welcomed the change of decoration; our clients seem to have welcomed our new artist too!

For more information on Maryclaire and her work, you can visit her blog or send her an email: maryclaire2@mac.com.

1-20-12- Featured Local Artist- Hilary Emerson Lay

Though we will miss Eric’s beautiful photographs, we are excited to bring change into our office for the new year. 

Our next guest artist, Hilary Emerson Lay, uses a variety of materials and colors in her work.  Though we only have her 2- Dimensional art on display, Hilary also likes to create Sock Critters, and has recently started a project to track one’s adventures. Her work radiates the warmth of her personality, and cheers up our office the middle of winter; we hope you will enjoy her art as much as we do!

For more photographs of her work, visit our Facebook page, or come by our office to check out her work.

“Artist bio & statement:

Hilary was raised in Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, in a highly creative and extremely eccentric family who encouraged all of her odd little artistic pursuits and personality quirks.  She grew up in a big, old house, surrounded by stacks of books and a menagerie of animals.

From a very early age, Hilary has held a deep love of and appreciation for books, especially picture books, and her love of words and stories has grown over the course of her life. She thinks printed words on a page are among the world’s most beautiful things.

Hilary weaves her love of animals, words, and color into her art. She works primarily in acrylic, gouache, pen, pencil, pastel, pages from dictionaries, and line drawings from old books and encyclopedias. In addition to her painting and collaging, she creates little stuffed creatures out of socks. Her artwork is an extension of her personality: bright, energetic, imaginative, playful, and fun.

All of these paintings have been covered in a layer of archival varnish with UVLS, to provide dust and dirt resistance and help prevent sun damage.  They are all signed and dated on the back.

To see more of Hilary’s work, to find out about other upcoming shows, and to find a link to her Etsy shop, please visit www.hilaryemersonlay.com.  Hilary welcomes correspondence and frequently takes commission requests.  She can be reached at hilary@hilaryemersonlay.com .”

Because people may not always be comfortable with the subjects being discussed in our office, we like to create a welcoming and comforting environment, in whatever way we can.  We sometimes will have freshly baked treats, we always have a variety of teas and coffees, and we encourage local artists to show their work. 

Currently, we are featuring local photographer Eric from EricG Photography. Though he has become only recently interested in photography, his work reveals a passion for the art form and an undeniably artistic eye. Eric's preferred subject matter has evolved since beginning to experiment with photography; currently, he prefers people, and capturing their lives.

This idea is explored in greater depth with the development of his "Stranger Project," where his subjects are the people he meets while walking around cities and towns.  Eric describes the process: "[I] just randomly stop and chat with people who are out and about. I get their 'story' and take their photograph. I then add their photograph to my 'Stranger Gallery' on my website. Sometimes that conversations last for upwards of 45 minutes, sometimes its a 30 second blurb about where they live, what they do and then they are on their way. Having been doing this project for about 4 months now, I have met over 150 amazing people…[and] only had six people decline to participate."

Part of Eric's "Stranger Gallery" will be on display in our office through January 17th.  We would love for you to drop in and enjoy the art!

For more information on the artist, and to view his portfolio, please visit ERiGPhotography.com or Facebook.com/ERiGPhotography.

To stay on top of the Law Office of Julie Low's Featured Local Artist, make sure to "Like" us on Facebook and keep visiting our blog!