Art Warms the Spirit and Body at Guild Exhibit

Easels packed the room, around the perimeter and in the center, back to back, in several rows, like Radio City Rockettes in the middle of a holiday routine. On them sat 70 works of art:  landscapes, portraits, still lifes, photographs and mixed media.

Eight of the works by city residents wore ribbons. 

The makers of some of those works mingled and chatted.  

Then members of the public began to trickle in. 

Welcome to the 47th annual open community art exhibit presented by the Woburn Guild of Artists Saturday, Nov. 27 at the . The guild, which includes members from outside the city, aims “to keep art in the community by offering the community a lot of benefits to take part in art,” explained guild President Joseph Leto, Jr.

For the Nov. 27 exhibit, the guild accepted entries for this show from the public, as well as its members. 

Without art, there would be no new inventions, said Leto, because art encourages creative thinking.  

“Plus, (art) calms your soul," he said. “It makes you relax.”  

Artist Amie M. Evans placed first in the mixed media category with her nontraditional work titled, “Taming Cerberus.” Cerberus, Evans explained, is the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to Hades.  

Evans and artist Wendy Stone have been members of the guild for only a few months. The Woburn  pair who share a home in the city joined the guild, they explained, to interact with other artists, participate in guild workshops and to exhibit their work.  

In contrast to those new members of the guild family, Laura Morrow has been a guild member for about two decades. A Woburn resident since 1953, Morrow said she has liked to draw since she was a child. Morrow began to watercolor when she joined the guild. She also likes the monthly art demonstrations that the guild offers members. Morrow displayed a watercolor of lemons and sugar, titled “Summertime.” Like lemonade, she suggested.  

Morrow got Pat Burtnett to join the guild. Burtnett received a special gift when she turned 60:  art lessons at the DeCordova Museum School. She exhibited the watercolor “Tulips.” 

“It’s nice to be part of an organization of artists,” commented Roberta Doyle, who displayed a collage, an elephantine “Mother and Child,” and oil, “The Olive Tree,” at the exhibit. Doyle has been a guild member for about five years. She likes the weekly Thursday guild work nights and the . Guild members learn from each other, she said, echoing other artists. 

“You can learn anything from anybody,” agreed Leto. The guide president described himself as a professional commercial illustrator, photographer and design artist—that is, someone who puts  bread on the table with his art. He started to draw, he said, when he was three years old. At age 10, his mother gave him a Brownie camera, he continued. That exposed him to photography.  

Leto’s goal is to bring more members into the guild, which started in 1964. An application is available on the guild’s . 

The exhibit included a student category.  Andrew Brown, a student at , took first place in that category with his photo “Rainbow.” 

 The guild also to a graduating Woburn High School senior to help defray college expenses, Leto said.

Some Woburn residents didn’t know that a guild of artists makes its home here. Laurie and Jack Bergstrom stopped at the exhibit because they said they love art and saw the sign outside the First Congregational Church announcing the exhibit inside.  “I – we – love art,” Laurie Bergstrom said, adding that the couple belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts. When she saw the sign outside the church, Laurie Bergstrom said she told her husband, “Honey, I want to go there.” The Bergstroms, who have resided in Woburn for about 15 years, loved some of the pieces they saw at the exhibit, said Laurie Bergstrom.  

On the other hand, the O’Mara family, Michele, Ray and Madeleine, 14, and Patrick, 13, came intentionally to the guild exhibit. They have come for several years, they said, since they moved here. The exhibit is their first stop, they explained, on their way to the .  

One year, they bought “a couple of prints” at the exhibit. Last year, Michele O'Mara said they won the raffle to benefit the guild’s scholarship fund. And they were looking to win the raffle again this year, she quipped. 

The trickle of exhibit viewers became more of a deluge after 5 p.m., according to Leto, as people who had gone to the Festival on the Common stopped by to see the artwork—and warm up. 

Woburn Guild of Artists ribbon winners from Woburn 

Photograph

Ellen Hamilton, “Through the Glass,” second place

Joseph Brown, “Wedding Walk,” third place

Student: 

Andrew Brown, “Rainbow,” first place

Watercolor

Mary Kelly, “House on the Marsh,” first place 

Mixed Media

Amie Evans, “Taming Cerberus,” first place 

Dry Media

Richard Corbett, “Classic Love,” first place 

Sculpture

Leo Lambert, “Interrupted Drink,” second place 

Special Member Award

Sarah Kehoe, photo, “Nature’s Tear”