Friday, October 23, 2026

October Artist of the Month

Art At The Kent Library

Sponsored by The Friends of Kent Library
with Arts on the Lake
Exhibit: Boscabel Views
Show Dates: October 1st-31st

Margaret Ryan

I’ve been lucky enough to be in the art world all my working life. From working in the scene shops in England and the Royal Opera House I was able to get into the Scenic Artist union when I came to America. I worked as a scenic artist for about 40 years, working on many New York based movies, at the Metropolitan Opera House, and on Broadway shows. My last job was being the Charge Scenic Artist on Sesame Street for 15 years. Since retiring I’ve been painting the beautiful Hudson Valley’s wonderful locations ‘en Plein Aire’. The paintings in this show were all painted at Boscabel this year.

I enjoy solving problems of construction, scale, proportion, drawing, and color mixing in painting. It’s different every time. Color mixing can be a surprise, with brushes carrying leftover paint. I enjoy the thought process and the struggle when the color isn’t what I hoped for or the drawing isn’t as interesting as I had hoped. And then there’s the joy I feel when I step back and look at the painting and think, wow that looks great, or did I do that? That doesn’t happen often but it does now and then and that feeling of accomplishment is the main joy of painting. It’s wonderful to work and solve whatever problem comes up. If it was easy to paint and every painting came out great then I would find it very boring.