Caution: Wet Paint

The edge of the parking lot at Sachuest Point Wildlife Reserve was lined with easels Saturday morning as part of the Newport Art Museum's annual "Wet Paint" fundraising event. A motley crew of painters stood behind their easels overlooking rolling hills of grass, two beaches and St. George's tower off in the distance.

In the middle of the row, artist Joanna Spicer Marvin, a redhead in paint-smeared pants, sat cross-legged on the ground amid paints, packs, and palette knives. Marvin came in from Seattle on a visit she times every year to coincide with the "Wet Paint" event.

One of the museum's two largest fundraisers, Wet Paint gives artists a chance to create "improv art" and then put it up for auction the same day. Starting at around 8 a.m. artists fanned out over Newport and begin to paint (or photograph).

Some stay very close to the museum, like Ross Cann, a former member of the museum's board of directors and a Wet Paint Committee member. An architect by trade, Cann sat on the fence across the street from the museum building, designed by Richard Morris Hunt, sketching in pencil.

The Hunt building "kind of gives shape to the campus and to the community," Cann said.

He added that he finds the Wet Paint event "relaxing" and a "kind of Zen." Unlike his architectural work, which is all done by computer, Wet Paint allows Cann to simply draw.

"It goes in through your eyes and out through your hand," he said. "It's one of the most mindless things you can do."

While Cann continued sketching, well-known artists Chris Wyllie and John MacGowan drove by. Having started out at 8 in the morning, they'd each dropped off multiple paintings. It was just after noon, well before the 3 p.m. deadline, when teams of museum volunteers would have three hours to receive and hang the art for the 6 p.m. preview reception and silent auction. 

One of the still-wet works MacGowan dropped off went on to draw high bids at the silent auction, which carried over from Saturday evening into Sunday, closing at 3 p.m. In accordance with Wet Paint tradition, paintings that received the highest bids in the silent auction moved on to a live auction, Sunday at 4 p.m. Live bids would pick up where silent bids left off. The MacGowan painting went on to be a top seller at Sunday's live auction, going, after several rapid volleys, for $1800.

This year, close to 270 artists participated in the two-day event, and by Saturday evening at least 400 people had registered to bid. It seemed everyone was on hand at a packed preview event that spilled outside for finger foods under the tent, much of it donated by local businesses.

Artists ranged from the accomplished to the novice (including a kid's wall), and from Newport Art Museum students and supporters to Newport celebrities like Happy (Hope Hill) van Beuren and her granddaughter Ainsley Kass. They had collaborated on a painting of a watermelon.

Among those attending the preview to see and place bids was Providence Mayor David Cicilline, a self-proclaimed art-lover. This was the mayor's first Wet Paint.

"I bid on a couple of pieces I really hope I get," Cicilline said.

Unlike MacGowan and Wyllie, the artists on Sachuest Point took their time, making it back to the museum just under the wire. Many of them, including Marvin, Cris McCullough, and Ernie Savastano, had met at Newport Art Museum classes, and they all agreed that painting together was a rare treat.

If Saturday was relaxed, collegial, and creative, Sunday had a whole different flavor as people began to stake out the art work they had bid on. Artists who had been carefree on Saturday began to worry about the size of the bids on the bid sheets next to their work. Some artists would later complain that their work didn't receive its due.

The talk among Wet Paint cognoscenti was about works by Pieter Roos, seascapes with brooding clouds or dark green shores, and quickly climbing into the hundreds of dollars.

One of his paintings closed the silent auction at $1500. Others talked of MacGowan, John Grosvenor and Richard Grosvenor. Prices were climbing on sunflowers by Michael Bryce and gulls by Anna Woishek. Bidders lamented about paintings that had been bid out of reach.

Back on Sachuest Point, Savastano and Marvin, who do this every year, predicted how it would be.

"People kind of hang around the works they want," Savastano said. "People really go after each other."

Marvin said she likes "watching everybody kind of hover until somebody makes the first bid."

On Sunday, just as the clock reached 3, you could find people watching their bid sheets longingly when someone approached. "Oh, come on," said one bidder when her counter-bidder returned with his pencil to top her. And when time was called, people scrambled to squeeze in a last bid.
"It's not over until there's a pink line through it," one person argued to another. But the museum staff moved quickly to draw that pink marker line through all final bids and rush everyone out.

Marvin's painting, the first of three paintings she had dashed off on Saturday morning, made it into the live auction and sold for $200. The auction was a quick, one-hour affair with a serious tone set by gallery owners and art collectors, but auctioneer Michael Cochran added a dollop of humor.

Roos' smallest painting of gray clouds went for $450. Bryce's sunflowers went for $550 and a John Grosvenor for $950. A painting of St. George's Tower by the 82 year-old Richard Grosvenor (whom Cochran dubbed "the grandfather of Wet Paint") went for $1300. Woishek's gulls went for $1500; a painting by the late John Barron went for $1900, and a hotly contested Jeremy Miranda went for $2300 to museum trustee Sandra Craig.

For those who won the silent auction, payment and collection went on into the night on Sunday. But many left before the silent bid sheet was released.

Anyone who won the silent auction has until Friday, Aug. 27, at 5 p.m. to pick up their art or it will be returned to the artist. The museum will be open this week for queries and pick-up, Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.