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CAPE COD LIFE
ART OF THE CAPE & ISLANDS - 2009 ISSUE

THE BOLD STROKES OF A LIFETIME
JANET SKINNER GILMORE

Yarmouth's Janet Skinner Gilmore has been a professional artist for more than 60 years."I was doing portraits by the time I was 12 - I was paid 10 cents for each piece," she says. The prolific painter, whose vibrant street scenes, colorful interiors, and expressive portraits can be found at the Rowley Gallery in Orleans, has dedicated a lifetime to making art amidst the challenges of raising eight children and relocating from North Easton to a cottage on the Cape's Bass River in Yarmouth - all as a single parent.

Gilmore, a Brockton native, put her career on hold after getting married while a student at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. When she returned, to complete her degree after having a family, she found out she was pregnant with her eighth child. "But I had painted all the time, and by that time I was dedicated to painting," she says.

  

Provincetown Waiter by Janet Gilmore

In 1985, after separating from her husband, Gilmore moved to her family’s modest summer cottage so her youngest child could attend high school in Yarmouth. It was hard. I had to make a new life," Gilmore says, "I got involved with the Yarmouth Art Guild and Cape Cod Art Association, and taught portrait and figure painting for 18 years."

Gilmore describes portraits as her bread and butter. She does commissioned portraits as well as charcoal or pastel sketches at the children's summer programs at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis. She has painted portraits from old photographs, too, including a 24" x 20" oil painting based on a small picture from the early 1900's. "She can get a likeness just like that," says gallery owner Elizabeth Rowley, napping
her fingers.

For years, collectors have been buying Gilmore's lively expressionist and impressionist landscapes still life oils, and watercolor works.

Gilmore's embrace of bold colors is evident in works like Provincetown that recreates the flavor of Cape Cod's outermost town, complete with fluttering banners, sidewalk cafe's, bicyclists and pedestrians maneuvering down Commercial Street.

 

 

Provincetown by Janet Gilmore

Gilmore can paint just about anywhere, but her favorite
places to set up an easel are in her backyard overlooking Dinah's Pond, or on a Nantucket beach, She says. "I like painting on the spot. I like to see the colors as they are - to enhance color, probably like the impressionists did."

The freedom to paint what she wants and the desire to make the next painting better than the last keep Gilmore upbeat about her career as an artist, in spite of the sacrifices she has had to make along the way. "As an artist, you really have to have self-confidence," she says. "If you don't you're lost.

AMERICAN ART COLLECTOR - AUGUST 2009
COLORING THE CAPE

New York native Lorraine w. Trenholm is a plein air painter with an unmistakable Cape Cod influence
With a preference for pastel and oil, Trenholm has produced many acclaimed works of the East Coast
Landscape.

Magenta Marsh by Lorraine Trenholm

"Patterns of bold color and light are always a theme in my painting. I like to point ordinary places that people see everyday, and I try to capture an instant in time during which the color, light or weather effects create dynamic forces," says Trenholm. "As an artist I have a restless spirit. I'm always seeking new ways to represent my perceptions. There is always something new to try and the driving force of my artistry is often "what if?"

Her success with representational depictions of the Cape Cod atmosphere stems from her intense study at the Cape Cod School of Art. Collectors notice her attention to the light and color this is so characteristic of this region.

"Recently I attended a painting demonstration given by Lorraine at the Rowley Gallery in Orleans," says collector Renee Joseph. "I feel in love with her works as they depicted the salt marshes, sand dunes and ocean that attracted me to part of the world. Of course, I purchased the demo painting on the spot."

 

AMERICAN ART COLLECTOR - SEPTEMBER 2009
COLLECTORS CONVERGE ON CAPE COD
MARY GIAMMARINO

Elizabeth Rowley, owner of the Rowley Gallery in Orleans, Massachusetts, says she was pleasantly surprised when three women walked into the gallery with July's American Art Collector in hand and pointed to Mary Giammarino's Mechanic Street painting, which had been featured in the Art Lover's Guide to Collecting Fine Art in Cape Cod & Islands.

Mechanic Street by Mary Giammarino

"Two of the women were from Texans and one from Maryland. The one from Maryland had taken a class from a Cape Cod School of Art student in Maryland and wanted to see more Cape School work, which she knew I sold after having seen the magazine," says Rowley. "Two women bought paintings from Mary Giammarino and one bought a painting of Lorraine Trenholm's, another Cape School artist.
They all subscribe to American Art Collector and were really anxiously waiting for the August issue with the Artist Focus on Lorraine Trenholm.

AMERICAN ART COLLECTOR JULY 2009
THE ART LOVER'S GUIDE TO COLLECTING FINE ART
IN CAPE COD & THE ISLANDS

People flock from all over the world to this narrow island to experience Cape Cod's breathtaking beaches, salt marshes and sand dunes, so naturally images of these landscapes by Rowley Gallery artists Mary Giammarino, John Clayton and Lorraine Trenholm are very popular. Collectors also lover the interior abstracts by Dorothy Strauss and Janet Skinner Gilmore, along with Tom Eaton's figure work.

Elizabeth Rowley - Gallery Owner/Director

"The new gallery", (new location at 84 Route 6A in Orleans, MA), "maintains the laidback 'living room' feel clients have grown to love, and the addition of an outdoor courtyard allows the gallery to offer clients a host of summer activities (painting demonstrations and talks by gallery artists).

Garden Chair by Mary Giammarino

AMERICAN ART COLLECTOR - DECEMBER 2008
COLLECTORS CONVERGE ON CAPE COD

Elizabeth Rowley, owner of the Rowley Gallery in Orleans, Massachusetts, says she was pleasantly surprised when three women walked into the gallery with July's American Art Collector in hand and pointed to Mary Giammarino's Mechanic Street painting, which had been featured in the Art Lover's Guide to Collecting Fine Art in Cape Cod & Islands.