ROCKLAND — The artist Nancy Glassman moved to her home in Searsmont in 1982 and has been poking around the St. Georges River watershed since, easel and paints in hand. Painting outdoors, she captures the seasonal cycles and how the changing light reveals the colors and moods of the land and water.

“The nuances of the minute seasonal changes enthrall me,” she said. “Our culture trains us to ignore these things so we can do all the stuff we are supposed to do, like earning money and being responsible adults. By nature, I am subversive. I think paying attention to what our bodies are made to respond to is deeply important. I hope my paintings help people do that.”

Glassman shows her work beginning Friday in a season-opening exhibition, “Living in the Watershed,” at Caldbeck Gallery in Rockland. Her paintings are being shown in tandem with work by George Mason, artist-in-residence for the Georges River Land Trust.

For the exhibition, Glassman assembled paintings that she has made over the years and spent considerable time outdoors last fall and winter making new work. “I felt inspired to paint a whole lot,” she said, “so I put on some crazy looking outfits and had a blast painting outdoors. I enjoyed going out to spots where I could set up my easel and just paint the water, the movement of the water and the plants along the edge. It was absolutely thrilling.”

When she connects with nature, she feels she is leaving “my own self and joining with the energy of the life-force around me. It’s totally restorative.”


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