An art show featuring Delhi-based watercolor painter Karen Gutliph Graves opens Oct. 7 at Delaware Pantry with an artist’s reception from 2 to 5 p.m.
The show runs each Thursday through Sunday until Nov. 18 at Delaware Pantry, a refurbished barn at 21780 state Highway 28, four miles east of Delhi.
Graves’ show includes a number of her new original pieces, both large and small, as well as prints and notecards drawn from the scores of watercolors she has painted over her career.
For more than three decades Graves has been creating realistic watercolor paintings of scenes from her native Catskill Mountains, places ingrained in her mind since a childhood in DeLancey. Graves, who studied art and ceramics at Buffalo State University, has earned a reputation as one of upstate New York’s finest watercolorists, earning accolades in local, regional and national shows.
“I paint with watercolor because it gives me the freedom to capture the fine details of an image - moss growing on a rock, the texture of a weathered barn board, or the fluffy warmth of a flannel jacket,” she says.
She credits her late mother, Delaware County native Mabel Worden Gutliph, a painter and sculptor herself, for inspiring her love of landscapes during nature walks in hills near their home.
“We always found treasures for the eyes on our treks,” Graves says. “My mother fostered not only a love of art but an appreciation of the Catskill landscapes that I still paint today. She gave me the gift of a lifelong connection with the woods, streams, stonewalls and barns that surround us. I paint what I see in nature, and that art defines who I am.”
Delaware Pantry is open from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday and holidays.
For more information contact Delaware Pantry at delawarepantrydelhiny@gmail.com
