Sheila Green, a Westville-based artist who was born and raised in New Glasgow, finds inspiration in some very interesting places.
Her newest collection of paintings, Flourish: a Collection, was borne of what was, admittedly, a very negative conversation about the collection’s subject: the Town of New Glasgow.
Green noted that she spoke to a friend about New Glasgow briefly, and the opinion of her friend was that New Glasgow “has no future and, and that nothing changes,” said Green.
“The conversation was generally about just what New Glasgow has to offer its residents. My feeling was that New Glasgow is ever-changing, and moving forward with the times,” she said. “Rather than focus on what we don’t like, why not focus on what we like, and even love about this place we call home?”
Over the course of the following year, Green reflected on the conversation and decided she wanted to do something to change the negative “has not” narrative about New Glasgow.
Green, by her own admission, a very visually oriented person, set out to accomplish the narrative change she sought by her own hand. She went around New Glasgow taking a multitude of photographs to showcase the beauty of the town.
Green said she wanted to use her talent to portray the town as a way to show that it is “a beautiful place… and one with a lot of opportunity. I think it has a bright future – that’s why I called the collection ‘Flourish.’ I believe it is pivotal that I called (the collection) that.”
Eventually, after editing those photos, the idea came to her to paint the scenes she photographed. The project was an important and personal endeavour for Green. She noted that the photos she took of the town – and oil paintings they inspired – represented places that associated with the formative, personal memories of her childhood.
What resulted, over the course of the following seven months, from October 2017 to April 2018 was the creation of 12 paintings – and six supplemental paintings – depicting a number of familiar sights in New Glasgow in all four seasons, showcasing what comes to mind, when people think about New Glasgow.
“Keeping my momentum was difficult through the seven months of creating this series,” said Green. “I continued to work on other projects as well, and this helped keep me fresh.”
The oil paintings of Flourish constituted a bit of a departure from what Green was used to, up to the point at which she created them. Green said that before she started the paintings of New Glasgow, she was more of a portrait artist – and that working with a new style of art has broadened her artistic horizons.
Flourish is not Green’s first collection of work on display. She has had portraits put on public display before, noting that “after this series, I might be more half-and-half,” since she finds herself working on more landscape-style painting and painting urban settings.
Flourish: a Collection will be on display the New Glasgow Library starting on June 8, in the Community Room where an officially opening is scheduled for 7 p.m.
