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SportsTwo artists capture four seasons at Tupelo Ridge
Friday, June 13, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by DICKSON MERCER
Cathy Terril, left, and Julia Musengo stand in front of their paintings at Artworks at 7th.
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Julia Musengo and her husband bought the 1830s farmhouse in 1997. Musengo named it Tupelo Ridge after the two tupelo trees in front of the house. Until last year, Musengo, a full-time artist from Broomes Island, had never committed to painting Tupelo’s sweeping landscapes or its barns or slave cabin.
‘‘If I went down with a friend who was a painter, I might paint,” she said. ‘‘But if I went down with a friend who was into gardening, I would just ignore the painting and we would go hike around and look at wildflowers.”
In May 2007, Musengo invited fellow full-time artist Cathy Terril, her friend from the hanging committee at Artworks at 7th in North Beach. Wholly enamored by the property, one trip for Terril was not enough.
She and Musengo returned three more times; at some point they decided to collaborate on a show.
Musengo and Terril would stay at the isolated farm for up to four days.
‘‘A lot of times we were so involved in the painting, we didn’t want to eat,” Musengo said. ‘‘We would throw fruit in a blender and call it dinner.”
‘‘Four Seasons at Tupelo Ridge” includes 39 paintings. As part of the show, Musengo and Terril have included photographic scrapbooks and even a topographical map of the area.
The cohesion among their pastels and oils is striking. ‘‘We picked up things from each other, and it improved both of us,” Terril said.
‘‘I would be struggling on some area and she would just encourage me to put more color on it,” Musengo said.
Through the years, Terril’s general technique has been to apply paint and use a knife. But Musengo inspired her to work more with a brush.
Terril painted the barns from a variety of angles with a spontaneous sense of color. While the texture of her work is slightly impressionistic, her sense of expressionism is revealed by her unexpected choices of color, which tend to be bright and dramatic. Even in the oil painting, ‘‘Spring Barn,” where the color patterns are realistic, she intensifies the brightness.
Musengo’s stronger pieces involve late afternoon fall studies of the majestic trees near the house. While both artists mainly stayed close to the house, Musengo occasionally wandered off to paint the view of Route 58 from atop the ridge and the nearby power lines.
‘‘I used pastels in the past, but not much,” Musengo said. ‘‘This is the most pastel work I have ever done. And I noticed from the first one to the last one that my pastels were a lot more fluid. They are less careful. They are more like paintings and less like drawings.”
Founded about four year ago, Artworks at 7th is a collective of artists who work in a variety of media.
‘‘I think that our show, in its theme, is a microcosm,” Musengo said, ‘‘or a condensed version of what’s going on in this co-op altogether: People meeting each other that have art in common and then working together and learning from each other. Basically, that’s the cohesion that’s going on here and why a community co-op gallery is so important for the arts community.”
