HANOVER — When traveling, Claudia Kern often takes a box of watercolors with her.
“I think when you do that in a place rather than just taking photos, when you see the details differently … you remember it in a different way,” said Kern, of Thetford. “You remember more the totality of the experience, what all your senses were telling you.”
Kern was drawn to art as a child, but said it wasn’t until eight years ago that she “had the courage to sort of say out loud ‘I’m an artist.’ ”
That realization came as she was preparing to do an outdoor wilderness class where she spent four days alone fasting in the wild.
“In that whole preparation process — then during that time and ever since — images and imagery have really become kind of core to my inner and outer journey in the world,” Kern said. “Sometimes the images just don’t leave me alone, and I feel like I have to capture them somehow.”
The experience also made her realize that “everybody has those seeds of creativity in them,” she said.
Kern is one of 12 participants in the Howe Library’s 55+ Art Exhibit, which has taken place for more than 30 years. The exhibit, which opened on Saturday, will be on display in the library’s Ledyard Gallery until May 29.
It’s Kern’s third year participating in the exhibit. Her painting, titled The Hare and the Moon, which she submitted last year, appears on the exhibit poster for this year.
A longtime Howe Library patron, Kern built up her courage and decided “to just make myself really vulnerable and put a couple pieces in the show,” she said. “I feel a little bit of a sense of being in good company with other older people who are kind of brave enough now to risk being a little vulnerable and showing their work.
“I think it’s kind of a public act of courage.”
Kern has submitted two pieces to this year’s show. One is a watercolor of an imagined jungle landscape with a waterfall titled Place Faraway. Another is a painting of Mount Moosilauke called Autumn Reflected, which Kern painted in 20 minutes as part of a painting challenge started by artist Mary Gilkerson.
She is inspired by poetry and nature.
“I think the worldview of indigenous culture inspires me. The wild nature, the natural world definitely. And I’m just absolutely in love with color and, especially in nature, colors are juxtaposed with one another, and I just find it really endlessly fascinating to note that, to try to capture that,” Kern said.
She also is passionate about the ability art has to connect people.
“I’m really interested in art building bridges of communication. I think the world needs that kind of way for people to connect. Art can be a bridge that people can cross to find meaningful connection with one another,” Kern said. “I think we really need to stay in touch with beauty and wonder in our lives in these times. That’s partly why I paint is to give myself that antidote, and its why I try to encourage other people to find a creative place in their lives whether it’s cooking or sewing, whatever. I think if we could get back in touch with that piece in our potential inside of us we can make the world a better place.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
