Albright still lifes exhibited at Town Hall

SHARON — Someone once said, “If you want to get something done, give it to a busy person to do.” Sharon resident and artist Judy Albright is just such a person.In addition to running a specialized interior design business, Home Potential-Interior Design; teaching painting; volunteering at her church, the Sharon Women’s Club and the Sharon Historical Society; Albright finds time to take art classes and paint still life studies in pastels.This month, until July 31, 28 pieces of her work are on display in the gallery on the main floor at Town Hall.Albright went to college as an art major, thinking she would become an artist but, she said, “You know how things happen. I had an opportunity to work in a kindergarten classroom and fell in love with little kids and wanted to become part of their whole development, rather then just teach them art once a week. I switched my major to elementary education and embarked on a 32-year career as a classroom teacher in Pine Plains.”Upon retiring from teaching in 2006, Albright decided to treat herself to a pastel painting class at the Southern Vermont Art Center. That experience was so much fun Albright grew to love painting with pastels.In 2007 she studied to become an interior “redesigner.” “I find treasures in your attic, in your basement and in your home and redesign what you have to make more beautiful spaces,” she explained. “It’s a niche of interior decorating, and much more affordable for most people. I come into your home, take what you already have and find ways to rearrange and recombine things to create a new look.”But even with her new career, she hasn’t given up her lifelong dream of studying art. She has taken classes at the Washington Art Association, and for the past four years has been studying pastels with Peiter Lefferts at Northlight Art Center in Sharon.Albright described pastel as pure pigment in a binder. “It’s basically what would be left if you took the oil out of oil paint or you didn’t add water to the watercolor.”When asked why she prefers to paint still lifes, Albright said, “There’s a connection between still lifes and being an interior redesigner, someone who loves beautiful homes and beautiful spaces. A number of the paintings here are still lifes from my own home. I sort of treasure those things. I love to paint these things.”Albright expects to have a new website for her painting in the near future. The exhibit of her work is open during regular Town Hall hours.

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