Gwen Melvin and Banjie Getsinger Nicholas at the Norfolk Library

by Veronica Burns
The works of two artists will be on display during the May art exhibit at the Norfolk Library. Gwen Melvin recalls that she began to draw horses when she was a child growing up in Chicago. “I was crazy about horses,” she says, her access to the animals coming from pictures. She took classes, her teachers being graduate students from the Art Institute of Chicago. “They were all so good,” says Melvin.

An image of a still life: Gwen Melvin, beside one of her compositions in her New Marlborough, Mass. home.

As an artist she moved on to people, again working from photos. However, she says, “I would always change something, maybe adding a hat. I didn’t just copy photos.” As to where her love of drawing and art comes from, she has no idea. “It’s a mystery,” she says, adding, “to tell you the truth I have never really thought about it.”
Melvin’s still life art, which has been exhibited at the art league in Sheffield Mass., at the library in Lenox, Mass., and at the Art Rental and Sales gallery at the Institute in Chicago, is mostly drawing. “I find still life more interesting because you have to design your own composition, which makes it more challenging.” When it comes to oils and watercolors, Melvin has also tried those mediums. “I don’t like to do something if I can’t do it well,” she recounts and for that reason she is “not as good as I would like to be” when it comes to working in oils and watercolors. She describes her work as “representative” and adds, “I am never far out in any way.”
A very determined lady, Melvin, who moved to New Marlborough, Mass., in 1984, sees her art as not being a hobby. “It’s a discipline,” she believes. “I feel I have made a commitment and it would not be right for me to give that up.”

A unique view: the natural world inhabits the art of Banjie Getsinger Nicholas.

Banjie Getsinger Nicholas grew up in rural northwest Connecticut and remembers that she and her four siblings were always drawing things. Coming from an artistic family, Nicholas says her inspiration is derived from nature. “We were out of doors all the time,” she says, “we would disappear into the woods for hours on end. I absorbed all of it.”
Such inspiration also led Nicholas to become a state-certified wild bird rehabilitator, which has allowed her many moments of up close and personal observations. She also raises a variety of moths and butterflies throughout the spring and summer. “My artwork is centered on things with wings,” she says, depicting birds, moths, dragonflies etc. Her award-winning work has been shown in various galleries and museums in Connecticut.
Nicholas is particularly excited when it comes to the topic of egg tempera painting, which is one of the mediums she works in, (she also draws with sterling silver, honed to a fine point). The idea of using simple things creatively is very appealing to her. “There is something wonderful about cracking an egg, separating the yolk, mixing that in with the pigments and applying that paint,” she relates, “I just love that.”
She also loves the fact that she was named for an “adored” grandmother, Elizabeth Gooding Getsinger. Those initials, of course, spell EGG. No wonder then that she writes in her artist’s statement that egg tempura “was destined to become my medium of choice.”
The opening art reception will be held at the library on Sunday, May 2 from 4 to 6 p.m.

Photo of Melvin By Bruce Frisch

Photo of Nicholas By Herself