ARTIST-in-residence

NCMF's World Premiere this summer of 2012 is Andrea Clearfield's Three Tenses of Light. Newburyport poet Rhina Espaillat wrote the libretto, and was inspired in turn by the work of Ipswich artist, Andrew Anderson-Bell.

The wide open spaces of conservation land, beaches, horse pastures, farmland and salt marsh estuaries of Ipswich and neighboring towns have captured Andrew's attention and are the leading sources of his artistic inspiration. Although many of his pastel paintings are of recognizable locations, he is not concerned with generating an exact reproduction. Instead, he often works in his studio from memory, sketches and/or photographs and a intuitive process to create a heightened sense of place. Working in this fashion promotes a more imaginative response to handling color and composition.

He attempts to convey nature's incantations: the whisper of wind through bows of spruce trees, the lapping of waves against a shoreline, the distant rumble of thunder. Attempting to capture the feel and temperature of weather and nature's change in mood, he often examines the metamorphosis of daylight to dusk or calm to approaching storm. He examines the spectrum of nature from the graceful dance of field grass to the power and fury of surf. He offers the viewer the indulgence of a meditative space to contemplate the grandeur of nature and reinforce the notion that even the most solitary and tranquil moments have significance.