Rotary Log for Meeting of May 17, 2018
Beautiful day for a Rotary meeting and an equally beautiful National Anthem. (To be honest, I missed the National Anthem. I'm just assuming it was beautiful.) In fact, I later found out, it wasn’t the National Anthem at all we sang. Oh well.
Happy Dollars.
Lots and lots of happy dollars today. Judy Loto was happy that her husband got his MBA and a Rotarian daughter graduated summa cum laude and is going to work for Google. If you don't believe it, that’s right, Google it! Another Rotarian was happy his son graduated first grade.
Peg is doing better and thank you to the Rotarians who looked in on her. Two Rotarians gave happy dollars just because they were happy to be in a room full of good people doing good things. We know that, but it sure is nice to hear it every now and then.
Announcements.
The club received a thank you note from Georgia Dickinson, now away on a trip to Italy with a group of PHS students. We gave her a bunch of 2017 Rotary Christmas Tree ornaments to give away as hostess gifts…
Sign up now for the Rotary Golf Tournament slated for June 22… Next week is the Rotary Scholarship program…
Bring clothes for Nancy. Well, not exactly for Nancy, but for the Friends in Action thrift store in Durham… The raffle today was $88 with no match. That's it for your news bites.
The program.
When it comes to art, I always feel like I'm a bit of a cretin. Lainey McCartney, however, has a way of making it all seem so understandable. Lainey was on hand to tell us about the Gertrude Fisk Show now going on at the Discover Portsmouth Center. When she finished speaking about Ms Fisk, I actually felt like I had learned something about art.
Now I am going to try desperately not to be a snob around friends and say things like, "Oh, you don’t know who Gertrude Fisk was?? Really?? You are soooo pedestrian."
Lainey McCartney is the Curatorial Associate of the Discover Portsmouth Center. She grew up in a very artistic family. While not an artist herself, she loves studying and lecturing on art. She discovered a collection of paintings by Gertrude Fisk and became enamored with her. This led to her to studying all of Fisk’s work and wanting to bring it to the Discover Portsmouth Center as an exhibit.
Gertrude Fisk was born to a wealthy Boston family in 1879. She died in 1961. She was educated at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, graduating class of 1911. In college, she was the star student of impressionist Edmund Tarbell, of New Castle fame. They were a mutual admiration society and his influence is clear in her works. She also practiced her craft under artist Charles Woodbury in Ogunquit every summer.
Empowered by the suffrage movement, she came into a profession which did not particularly welcome women. But her family was full of strong, brave women. Therefore, she was naturally inclined to be enlightened, thoughtful and daring. World War I helped her a little bit because men were being called off to Europe. Women took their places in the workforce and in the art world. Her use of light, color, and technological developments was ground breaking. Her show of confidence of women in her paintings was like no other female artist of the time.
Fisk was also a remarkable etcher. Interestingly, she was also an incredible athlete and would have been a pro golfer had she not decided to focus on her art. She became a nationally recognized artist and lived a very comfortable life selling her paintings.
So that you, too, can wow your friends at cocktail parties, or if you just want to see some really cool paintings, I have a suggestion. Go to the Discover Portsmouth Center and see "Gertrude Fisk: American Master.” The exhibition is open until September 30, 2018 and there are a variety of lecture series and symposiums scheduled throughout the spring and summer. Yeah, I know you've got to get the yard ready for the summer and do some painting. And more planting. But just go to this. You will thank yourself.
Respectfully submitted, Jonathan Flagg
Photos by Tube Loch