It was about seven years ago when Cathy Kaplan finally got around to painting an old photograph of her parents border garden.
She had used it as a book mark for years and always wanted to reproduce the picture so her parents could hang it in their home. Ideally it would be near the window looking over the garden to create some sort of cool optical illusion.
“I just decided it was time to paint it,” Kaplan said.
She created the watercolor piece using the wet-on-wet technique of applying wet colors on top of previously placed wet colors. It’s an explosion of colors that borders on abstract.
“You wouldn’t look at it and say ‘she painted this from a photograph,’ ” Kaplan said.
The painting was framed, but Kaplan never gave it to her parents.
“It hadn’t really seen the light of day,” Kaplan said.
So when Mark Foynes, development director with the Friends Program, called to see if she would be interested in donating a piece for this year’s 15th annual charity auction to benefit Friends’ Youth Mentoring Program, Kaplan thought it would be the perfect one. This year’s theme was artists’ choice, and this painting was one she had a deep connection with.
“It represents the direction I’d like to go in as an artist,” Kaplan said. “It’s a meaningful painting.”
On Friday at the Grappone Conference Center, Kaplan’s work, along with 25 other New Hampshire artists, will be up for bid to raise money for the Friends Program.
“I feel so strongly about the mission and the work of the friends program,” said Kaplan. “Their work is tremendous and donating the painting is a way to do my part.”
This will be Kaplan’s third year as part of the charity auction, having donated a painted Adirondack chair and bench in 2011 and 2012.
Despite being among some of the best artists in Concord and the state asked to donate work, Kaplan has a hard time calling herself an artist. Yes, she creates pieces of art, but until recently it has been more of a side thing. Then in October, Kaplan made a bit of a life change that allows her to focus more on her paintings, as well as the pen and ink creations she really started out with.
“I’m on a path to having more time to do my own art,” Kaplan said. “But I still struggle to call myself an artist.”
Before college, Kaplan loved art, but at the same time was convinced she was going to be a doctor. She immediately declared biology as her major, but when she took an art history course as a sophomore, things changed.
“I was hooked. It took just one lecture,” said Kaplan.
She switched her major to art history and graduated with a degree from Wellesley College in 1989.
But Kaplan still kept an eye on a return to the medical field. She worked in the neuroscience lab at MIT during her senior year and took a job at Dartmouth Medical School as a senior research assistant in the department of psychiatry/cognitive neuroscience after graduation. There, she would trace MRI scans of brains. She never lost touch with her art.
It all goes back to her high school art teachers, Robert Eshoo and Rosemary Uicker, at the Derryfield School. They saw the potential and pushed her to devote extra time to art.
“They took me under their wings and made sure I had extra classes,” Kaplan said. “Really, without their support, I don’t think I’d be where I am today.”
For more of Kaplan’s work, visit ctk-art.com.
