Carole Chisholm Garvey, RIVER SUNSET, pastel on paper, 11.75 x 23.75 inches unframed, 21 x 32.75 inches framed, $3,500
Drivers between Osterville and Centerville often slow down when crossing the Main Street/South Main Street bridge between the two villages. Looking south there’s the Centerville River and Long Beach with Centerville Harbor beyond. Looking north, Bumps River winds its way through marshland. The beauty can be distracting, and Osterville artist Carole Garvey often does more than slow down. She’ll park her car at a friend’s nearby house and walk back to the bridge to make “notes” on the view with her pastel pencils, sketchpad and camera. Just recently, she says, she commented to her husband, “I wonder how many times I’ve painted it?” Something like 15 to 20 times over the years, she guesses.
But the attraction isn’t the particular place per se. Carole isn’t especially concerned with her landscapes being recognizable, but with communicating the transient effects of color and light. The views from the bridge are “always changing; it’s a new show every day, depending on the season, weather and time of day,” Carole says. “I don’t think, ‘Oh, here I am, back at the Centerville River.’ But it’s a source of inspiration.”
A signature artist with the Pastel Society of America and the Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod, Carole treasures pastels for their immediacy and enduring purity of color. “River Sunset” was inspired by her experience of the view one late fall afternoon, looking south toward Centerville River. Her luminous scene — with the pale yellow sun caught in the clouds, mirrored forever in the tranquil water — makes us slow down, too, wanting to take that longer look. See More Pastel Paintings by Carole Chisholm Garvey