Summer Greetings!

We’ve reached the Dog days of August and Mother Nature is pouring on the heat! But somehow we’ll blink 2 times and the leaves will start to turn and the ubiquitous appearance of pumpkin spice everything will announce that summer has left the building. <Sigh!> I hope you’re able to get out and enjoy these long warm evenings with their hazy sunsets and the night sky set ablaze by both the Perseid Meteor Shower that starts August 12th and the Sturgeon Moon! Perhaps we’ll see a whole new series of nocturnes?!
 

Looking back … Kudo’s to Peggy VanValkenburgh and Paula Fraser for their contributions to such a memorable Member Show back in June/July.   If you missed the reception, oh you missed an amazing paint-a-round! This year’s participants were Maryann Mullett, Lisa Regopoulos, Janet Schwartz & David Kaphammer.  They made it look so effortless! And, by the end of an hour and 15 minutes, we had 4 lovely pieces up for auction. This year we had the pieces framed and set out on display at the venue along with an online auction to allow for more than just those present to participate. All 4 paintings found homes raising $890.00 with all of the proceeds donated to the Monadnock Center for History & Culture.  Happy to also announce that our winner of the People’s Choice award is Andrew Anderson-Bell for his painting: Marshland Tranquility. Congratulations to Andrew and to the artists of the 3 paintings from the exhibition that went home with new collectors!
 

While I wasn’t able to attend personally, I heard rave reviews from this year’s PSNH member retreat! Thank you to all who participated and to Cheryl Christain for opening up her home to welcome everyone in to share a meal together! We’re adding a new board chair for enrichment activities, so stay tuned for other opportunities soon to come! If you attended and would care to share a testimonial that we could use on the website or in social media, please reach out via email to either myself (selarkham@msn.com) or to Terri Brooks (terri.g.brooks@gmail.com).
 

Have you made the painstaking decision on which of your masterpieces to enter into this year’s National Juried Exhibition? We just finalized the last of the details at our Board Meeting on Monday 8/11, so look for the prospectus to be published soon, both on our PSNH website Exhibitions page and on Show Submit.  We are trying a new venue  this year, the Thornhill Art Gallery on State St. in Portsmouth. The gallery is owned by one of our members, Robin Thornhill and is only a couple of blocks away from our former exhibition site.  Entries will open August 18 and close September 18, so if you’re a procrastinator, don’t worry, you still have time to paint something new!
 

We have been fortunate to garner new interest in expanding new positions on our board of directors, however there is one very important role that we still looking to fill which is that of Treasurer. Jan Rogers has done a yeoman’s job of keeping our finances in ship shape, but her term is ending in November and would like to have ample time to mentor/train someone new. If you are a fiscal whiz or you know someone that might be both interested and already familiar with non-profit bookkeeping and treasury tasks, please send their name & contact information our way. Our board meetings are held via Zoom on the 2nd Monday of the month from 7:00-8:00pm. Our meetings are always open to our general membership.  In fact our next meeting of the year will be Monday 9/8. If you’d like to join us, email me for the link! (selarkham@msn.com).

Hope to see you all at the opening of It’s Pastel! On November 8th!

On your marks…

Susanne Larkham