PUTNEY-The Putney Public Library, 55 Main St., presents “Dreams of Color,” an exhibit of watercolors and collaged bookmarks by Claire Halverson, through May 30. The exhibition, which is open to all during the library’s operating hours, includes many small, landscape-based watercolors.
Halverson, who lives in Dummerston, says she paints what she sees and loves during her walks in Vermont. She began doing artwork years ago. She explored varieties of graphics — woodcuts, lithographs, and etchings. She studied at the Museum School in Boston, where she discovered how much she loved working in different ways with her hands.
Halverson stepped away from art for several decades while she raised her daughter and began a teaching career. She retired in 2011 and returned to creativity through the medium of collage.
“I would sit at my table, turn the music up loud, choose a few bold colors of tissue paper, and see what would happen,” she said in a news release. “I loved tearing the paper into unpredictable shapes and layering brilliant transparent colors over darker ones. I made bookmarks and greeting cards, reveling in the joy of color and experimentation.”
In early 2023, she began painting with watercolors. She took classes with Lynn Zimmerman, who gave her artist-quality paints and encouraged her as she taught her watercolor techniques — washes, dripping, mixing colors, spattering, layering, and the magic of transparency.
Halverson says she is particularly drawn to semi-impressionistic work and also studied with Donna Cary and Sarah Yeoman, whose loose style of painting she admires.
“Nature has always been my greatest inspiration,” she said. “Art helps me notice more. During my daily walks I observe the light on a leaf, moss on a rock, snow and ice in a brook, or the shift of color in the sky. When I’m painting, the noise of the world quiets. For a while, there are only colors, shapes, and possibility—and sometimes, even dreams filled with beautiful color.”
Putney Public Library is open Monday through Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.