Anne Belson Studio

 Falmouth Heights in Winter was a compelling subject for me: a “summer place” transformed by this winter’s deep freeze: icy shores and lingering patches of snow everywhere. The cold winter light seemed to set free the mosaic of colors in the topography and the familiar cluster of buildings at the crest of the hill. I wanted the painting to capture the sense of excitement I felt in being there at that moment.

Open Door Roses was my response to the familiar sight of a cherished building (soon-to-be studio) next to my Falmouth cottage. Transformed by the strong afternoon light, the roses were at their best, dancing and dazzling. In stark contrast, the dimly lit interior visible through the open door loomed mysterious, softened only by the bit of light from the opposite window within. There was a completeness about the moment that I tried to express in the balance of the composition.

I painted The Silence of New Snow one morning just as the last in a series of snowstorms that blanketed Cape Cod last winter was ending. The final layer of snow had totally transformed the topography of a once familiar sight –my neighbor’s yard.  The stillness was overwhelming. No sounds. No footprints. No birds or animals scurrying about. The air felt heavy and resistant to my breathing.  I tried to paint what it felt like to be in that place at that moment.

I was making little picture books on scraps of paper before I could write words. I spent afternoons after school in a corner of my Dad’s sewing machine shop in Wollaston with a little watercolor box, a brush and a paper cup, turning out pictures of costumed animals. Later on, I would try to capture classmates’ likenesses on paper.  Quincy High school introduced me to oil painting, printmaking and clay, but it was a watercolor of students saluting the flag that won an award from the Massachusetts Federation of Women’s Clubs. In my freshman year at Emmanuel College, a “magical” painting demonstration by the noted watercolorist Joe Santoro spurred me on to further study. I loved watercolor’s unique qualities but learned to respect its unforgiving nature. I relied on careful underlying pencil drawings and overlapping shapes to build compositions and develop a style.

After Emmanuel, I studied advertising design at Boston University, earned a Masters degree from Boston State College, and took grad courses at Massachusetts College of Art. I worked as a portrait artist on Cape Cod, a tech illustrator at Smithsonian Observatory in Cambridge, a “traveling art teacher” in the Hull and Stoughton public schools, and a graphics designer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston before becoming their Cultural Affairs Coordinator for 25 years. I continued to draw, paint and exhibit my own work whenever possible.

My job at the FRB included managing the gallery space used by New England based arts groups. One of them was The New England Watercolor Society. Their first National Show in the Bank’s gallery was so popular that it became a biennial event. I got to work alongside and learn from the best of New England’s watercolor painters. Knowing that I shared their love of the media, they encouraged me to continue my own painting and, after the Bank’s Gallery closed, they invited me to be on their Board of Directors. I became a Signature Member of the organization in 2004, and my paintings have been in several national shows and garnered a few prizes.

I’m a fulltime artist now, living in Falmouth on Cape Cod. I still love the way watercolor slides over the surface of the hot press paper I use, and how it leaves a record of the path the brush takes. I find color particularly exciting when it plays an equal role with the white of the paper. I start my paintings “en plein air” and finish them in my studio overlooking Bourne’s Pond, a saltwater estuary and a source of so much inspiration. It’s a dream come true!