By
Merrill Shea
Piece description from the artist
I confess to harboring sentimental feelings for a time when I could wander through a neighborhood and feel its distinct personality. Gone are the days when I walked the narrow streets of Boston's North End and saw pigs heads hanging in the windows of small Italian butcher shops; elderly couples sitting on sidewalks, watching the world go by. Tourism has taken over and restaurants have replaced many of the local businesses, but Bova's 24 Hour Bakery still retains, for me, that feeling of a local community gathering spot.
I felt that the sense of timelessness that I wanted to convey was best rendered in a painterly medium. I call this a "watercolor hybrid". It was first a photograph which I then reworked in the computer, using various techniques, to produce a watercolor-like image, including the paper texture. In many ways, I think it's the best of both worlds.
Merrill Shea began his artistic career as a classical musician and then gradually migrated toward the visual arts. He has worked as a free-lance photographer in the commercial, non-profit and academic worlds throughout Eastern Massachusetts for over twenty-five years. He is entirely self-taught.
Merrill spends at least one month every year traveling primarily throughout New England and the Pacific Northwest. While his oeuvre includes urban imagery, his primary inspiration comes from the natural world. His TurningArt offerings represent a selection from his personal projects, which range from intimate and panoramic seascapes to interpreting the oldest living things on earth: the fantastically gnarled bristlecone pine trees that survive at twelve thousand feet above sea level.
Merrill continues to explore the varieties of color, graphics and texture that are possible within the photographic medium. Like many photographers, he has been influenced by the iconic black and white nature photography of Ansel Adams. In that regard, he has included identical images which he feels are effective both in color and black and white.
Merrill has always been fascinated with the medium of watercolor and has recently been exploring the possibilities of using various computer techniques to produce watercolor-like images from photographs that, in many cases, are indistinguishable from true watercolors.
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