Gallery Exhibit Committee

Recruits and guides exhibitors for the AIA Baltimore Gallery.
Kristine Carter (Chairperson), AIA Baltimore
(410) 625-2585; kcarter@aiabalt.com

1st Thursday Opening Reception
February 6, 2003

MaryKate Newcomb is a Baltimore native, and earned a Masters degree in art education and BFA in painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is an active member of Central Presbyterian Church in Towson, where she leads a small visual arts ministry, and teaches art at Gilman Middle School.

Newcomb has been painting landscapes for several years, and enjoys working en plein air for many reasons. She finds it very interesting to talk to people who walk by and are curious about art, and almost always learns something about people and the place which she is painting from these conversations. Newcomb learned that a woman's son played under “those trees” forty years ago when they moved here, or "my dad was buried right behind that row of stones." Sometimes people tell her that they once had artistic ambitions, but for one reason or another, took another path and wonder what might have been. Some wonder why she wants to paint the views she chooses, instead of something more glamorous. "A cement factory? Suit yourself, I guess!" Everyone has something to offer, even if it's just, "are those water-paints?" When Newcomb painted in Italy during college, an old man asked everyone who walked by what they thought of her painting, in all five languages he knew fluently. She now knows five ways to say, "so-so."

The landscapes being exhibited are from her own neighborhood in Parkville, and from a few trips over the summer. Her first camping experience was also a great opportunity to paint, made even better by the lack of mosquitoes and spiders in Ontario. “I hope you enjoy them as much as I did, making them,” states Newcomb.

The public hours for the bookstore and gallery are Monday through Thursday, 9 – 4:30 pm.