Island Gallery and Studios

Description

Island Gallery and Studios Featured Artist for April:
‘It’s All About the Light”

Marie Garafano is an oil painter, who works in an impressionistic style. She prefers landscapes, and delights in painting En Plein Air. She also does studio painting. She worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer for twenty-five years. Her clients were publishers and corporate clients. She illustrated a children’s book for Houghton Mifflin called Ginger Goes on a Diet, a book about a foster child and her cat. It was painted in watercolor. That led to Pennsylvania Residencies in the Arts in High schools in the state. She taught a Children’s Book Class at Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia for about ten years, and a watercolor class in Continuing Studies at The University of the Arts.

For ten years, she was a teaching artist with The Institute For the Arts in Education in Philadelphia, a program based on The Lincoln Center Program. All of the art disciplines , Music, Dance, Theater and the Visual Arts were funded by a grant from the state of Pennsylvania. We worked with students in the poorest neighborhood schools, with programs with the Philadelphia Orchestra, The Philadelphia Museum of Art and other venues. It was such a rewarding experience to be a part of.
Artist’s Statement: I like to use a quote by Cornell West, "To find the sublime in the ordinary".