“Visions of Nature” launches Ardsley Village Hall Gallery
“Visions of Nature” launches Ardsley Village Hall Gallery
The inaugural art exhibit features work by local artist Carol Perron Sommerfield
by Kris DiLorenzo
Ardsley — The Village of Ardsley’s inaugural art exhibit is open in Village Hall, in a gallery established to showcase work by local artists.
Carol Perron Sommerfield’s “Visions of Nature,” which opened April 27 and is on view through Sept. 13, comprises 44 paintings curated from the past 12 years of her work.
“I’m honored to be the inaugural exhibitor at the new Ardsley Village Hall Gallery,” Somfimerfield told the Rivertowns Current. “This show is all about landscapes. One of the reasons I picked this theme was because of the Pollinator Pathway connection. [Sommerfield is the founder and chair of the citizen-run project.] I really wanted to tie into this focus that I have on land, loving the land, trying to restore it, and trying to represent it so people can appreciate it.”
Twenty-five percent of any sales from the exhibit, in person and online at frogsleapgallery.com, will benefit two organizations that protect and improve Ardsley’s natural resources: Bronx River/Sound Shore Audubon and the Westchester Parks Foundation.
Sommerfield’s paintings — watercolors (with and without pastel), oils, acrylic, and mixed media — capture her relationship to land, water, and wetlands: she paints in Ardsley during the fall, winter, and spring; in summer she paints at Lake Muskoday, near Roscoe in the Catskills.
Sommerfield dipped into her own collection for some works from her 2023 “Returning” exhibit at the Greenburgh Public Library, for which she painted 12 hours a day for two months, producing 109 paintings for the large space. For the current exhibit, she said, “Some paintings were done frantically in the last two months.”
Sommerfield has a personal connection between her paintings and environmental activism. “It has everything to do with my childhood experience in the Catskills. It just totally got into my blood — the landscape, the plants. My parents also loved the landscape. It was a family thing: if you were a Perron, you had to love the land. And then academically, I got very interested in systems theory and how things connect, and I realized, that’s nature. If it’s working well, it’s the most incredibly complex, perfect system. Later in life, I realized I could connect those two because they belong connected.”
Of all the natural elements, water intrigues her most. “It goes back to my Catskill experience of summers on a lake,” she elaborated. “In looking at what to select for the exhibit, there’s different moods. I love the moody landscape; it’s misty, it’s cold — that’s one of my favorites. But then there’s also the joyful landscapes, which have lots of color and motion.”
Those contrasting moods are clearly depicted in “Methol Swamp – Aug. 1” and “Autumn Jazz # 4.”
In the former, muted pastels portray an upstate swamp: cloudy sky, line of trees, and a strip of earth border on vague vegetation at the edge of multicolored water that reflects the plant life. The romantic, impressionistic rendering belies the fact that the swamp smells.
“Autumn Jazz #4” features rich, saturated, fiery colors of impressionistic trees reflected on a lake’s glassy surface, giving the feel of fall’s last warmth. Below, where scattered suggestions of lily pads float on deep blue water, the feel is cool, transitioning to winter. The painting’s style strikes a balance between abstract and representational.
“Trout Brook Stream – October” is unique. Brilliant lemon yellow dominates, with spidery, bare tree branches interspersed, and rough-surfaced rocks line the stream banks. The work was done by applying watercolor on Yupo (non-absorbent paper), with fabric, a new technique for Sommerfield.
“I like using cloth and stencils and other things that put patterns on the paint while it’s drying, then use that in the design,” she said. “It may look like trees in a forest, but when you get up close, you see that it’s actually almost stenciled, or it’s a piece of fabric that puts texture on the paint.” To achieve the effect, Sommerfield laid cloth on the painting, weighed it down with old-fashioned irons (she collects them), let it dry for a day, then removed the cloth, leaving a pattern.
She described how she selected exhibition pieces. “When you hang a show, it’s like throwing a dinner party. Some paintings don’t get along with other paintings, and some paintings really get along with other paintings. It’ll depend on the conversations between the paintings, who gets along with who.”
Sommerfield’s participation in beaux arts exhibitions in Dobbs Ferry, Bronxville, New Rochelle, and Katonah have yielded a half dozen first-place awards, when she wasn’t a competition judge. She has had solo shows throughout Westchester and was formerly co-curator of the Donald Gallery at Dobbs Ferry’s South Presbyterian Church (2016-2020).
As an environmental activist and self-proclaimed “lazy gardener,” Sommerfield, a veteran of the Village’s Conservation & Environment Advisory Committee, launched Ardsley’s Pollinator Pathway program, She provides “hacks” to make gardening easier: a monthly newsletter, how-to guides, webinars, and events, with the goal of “making significant change, one yard at a time.” Currently, she’s seeking more volunteers to help plant a garden at Hart’s Brook Park and Reserve, near Hartsdale, on May 4-5 (for details, visit ardsleypollinatorpathway.org).
Sommerfield is always active in a cause, but painting is her mainstay, and she’s not precious about it.
“My artist statement is simple,” she affirmed. “I paint what I love, what I find beautiful, what intrigues me, and what makes me laugh. And then I hope for the best.”
“Visions of Nature” is at Village Hall, 507 Ashford Ave., Ardsley. The gallery is open Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-4 pm. For more information and images of the paintings, visit frogsleapgallery.com.
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