Art Exhibit At The Berlin Free Town Library

The Berlin Free Town Library is pleased to exhibit “The 3 Healys, Works on Paper,” September 8 through 19. We invite the community to an opening reception on Saturday, September 10 from 2 to 4 pm.[private] Arthur Healy (1909-1978) first began painting watercolors when he worked for the Navy in Key West, Florida during WW2. He designed camouflage that disguised the entire naval facility as small shacks and houses. After the war, he worked as an architect, and in 1946 he founded the art department at Middlebury College in Vermont. From then on he painted every day of his life. Three thousand of his paintings were destroyed by fire in 1970, however, many of his works are in private homes, museums and college collections in the U.S. Several of his works survive in pensioni throughout Italy where he took a sabbatical in 1954. Arthur’s two children, Kelly and Sophia, often watched their father soak large sheets of watercolor paper in water to prepare it for painting, moving from the wet, swift work to dry strokes. Their love of paper came from Arthur. Art was everything to the Healy family. Kelly went on to become a photographer, printing his photographs on dampened sheets; Sophia, who taught drawing and papermaking at Bennington College for 14 years, currently makes paper at Trout Paper, the handmade paper shop she founded in Whitecreek, NY. Kelly continues his photography. Sophia, also a novelist and sculptor, continues to create art using handmade paper. [/private]