I’m proud to share a new painting created for the Ocean County Historical Society. The museum houses an incredible collection of Native American artifacts in addition to numerous exhibits about local history. Recently, the organization underwent a major renovation, and I was commissioned to do a painting that showed what life may have looked like in the Ocean County, New Jersey area for our native peoples.
The process from our initial meeting took over a year to complete. After learning about their collection and vision for the project, I presented the Historical Society with three different paintings. The studies below were painted in gouache, small concepts that were to be enlarged for the nearly 5x8’ panel.
The most difficult part of the project was technical. Museum display expert Stan Cain built a custom, concave wood panel so the painting would fit seamlessly into the surrounding display. Canvas is my preferred painting surface, and figuring out how to glue this material to the curved panel required some creative problem solving and nearly 400 lbs. of cat litter.
For the actual painting, I chose to scale my miniature painting by hand. Over the course of four weeks on location, I built up the image intuitively with large washes of paint followed by small bits of color.
Hundreds of grade school students tour the Historical Society each year to learn about the area. It is the very school system I attended as a child- I vividly recall building a Lenape longhouse on one of our class trips, one of many experiences that kindled my interest in times past. It feels special that my image will help future generations visualize what came before them. I would like to thank the folks at OCHS for being so welcoming and supportive of my vision for their Lenape painting.
If you are located in New Jersey, I encourage you to visit them in person! Please join me and the Historical Society on March 7th from 1-4 PM for the celebration of the Birdsall Room renovation.
Below, you can find available paintings from this project.
Written by Michelle Farro
