CAPE ANN SISTERHOOD EXHIBIT AT NORTH SHORE ARTS ASSOCIATION
AUGUST 5 - SEPTEMBER 18, 2016
OPENING RECEPTION - FRIDAY, AUGUST 5TH, 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm
"NSAA's MISSION has provided the common ground that brought us together originally because of our love for the arts, many of us artists as well. We have each served as board members, officers, committee chairs and contributors to special events at different times together. Without this connection that attracted us to join the cause, we may never have met. We have become fast friends over the past sixteen years thanks to serendipity, or maybe divine providence, for which we remain forever grateful.
So, that said, we have dubbed ourselves as The Sisterhood, which we have truly become!"
-Janice Turner of the Cape Ann Sisterhood
-Janice Turner of the Cape Ann Sisterhood
"They say, "It is better to give than to receive", but sometimes you can do both simultaneously as a group of board members of North Shore Arts Association has discovered.
Some fifteen years ago, Anne Demeter, the President of NSAA, Trudy Allen, Gallery Director, and Judythe Evans Meagher, Trustee Board Member, arranged to meet for dinner at the Windward Grille in Essex. The folks at the Windward were so welcoming, accommodating and tolerant (there was a fair amount of raucous laughter that evening), that the group decideded to do it again and again and again. In a little while, they were joined by the then Treasurer, the late Carleen Muniz, Corresponding Secretary, Janice Turner, and another Trustee, Bonnie Gray. Bonnie introduced to the group Andrea van Gestal, who has since served as President, Treasurer, and Recording Secretary, and she invited Trustee, Judy Metcalfe. Before long (nobody remembers exactly when anymore), they were joined by Trustees Pamela Giarratana and the late Connie Mullen.
The management of Windward Grille has seen a lot of this group over the years, including their annual Yankee Swap, and has remained welcoming, accommodating and tolerant even though the raucous laughter has never ceased and may even have increased in volume.
This is a diverse group of women in many ways, with backgrounds ranging from law to interior design, mediums ranging from oils and watercolor to alcohol inks, and painting styles ranging from photorealism to abstract. All but Janice Turner are painters, but since she has been the wife and helpmate of Rockport artist Bruce Turner for over 50 years, the group considers her an artist by association.
These friends have formed strong bonds and a support network that has seen them through the inescapable life challenges of illness, death and divorce. But what binds them together at the core is their love for and dedication to the North Shore Arts Association. If you were to tally their combined years of volunteering as trustees, officers, committee members and chairs, workshop teachers, event coordinators, hangers of exhibitions, writers of programs, along with all the little tasks and roles that don't even get a name, you would easily surpass a century. They are all very mindful, not of what they have given to North Shore, but what they have gained as a result, something they have dubbed, "The Cape Ann Sisterhood"."
