Dayhoff Westminster: Smallwood artist Jerry DeWitt to display critically acclaimed rural farm paintings at Off Track Art in Westminster.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Smallwood artist Jerry DeWitt to display critically acclaimed rural farm paintings at Off Track Art in Westminster.

Show opens with a reception for the artist on Friday, September 7, 2012 at 5:30 to 7:30 at Off Track Art, [http://offtrackart.blogspot.com/] 11 Liberty Street – side entrance in the Liberty Building in historic downtown Westminster. The show will continue through October.

By Kevin Dayhoff, kevindayhoff@gmail.com

September 7, 2012 Labels: Ag, Ag art, Art Artists Culture, Art Artists Culture Carroll Co, Art Artists DeWitt Jerry

Off Track Art is celebrating the art of Jerry DeWitt for its first opening of the fall season on Friday, Sept. 7^th, 2012 from 5:30--7:30, to show his beautiful watercolors from a variety of locales including Carroll County.

Mr. DeWitt, a Smallwood, Carroll County Maryland artist, has just returned from Montana and Michigan. Earlier in the year, this past March, Mr. DeWitt was the featured artist in the Babylon Great Hall at Carroll Community College. [http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/2012/03/jerry-dewitt-discusses-his-farm.html] The highly successful show was well-received and the opening was packed. It has been reported that Mr. DeWitt sold a large number of painting at the Carroll Community College show…

“Jerry DeWitt was born in Michigan in 1933 and has been painting, primarily watercolors, since his teenage years,” according to information provided by the artist…

“Over 300 paintings hang in homes and businesses from Alaska to Florida. His work has been shown in galleries in Washington, DC; Montana; and Maryland. Mr. DeWitt’s Montana paintings were featured in American Artist magazine.

“Mr. DeWitt enjoys traveling, and has series of paintings from Maine and from Frederick and Carroll Counties. His subjects are often old farm buildings or homes, as he strives to capture and retain the spirit of American places of the heart.

“Viewers may be drawn to tranquil scenes and transported to a quieter, more peaceful time. He has a special affinity for birds and has painted many species. Jerry has framed many of his paintings in old barn wood, sometimes from the very site portrayed.

“Most notable of these paintings is his award-winning portrait of the Wye Oak, framed in the wood from that famous tree.

According to an article about Mr. DeWitt’s work by critically acclaimed Carroll County artist, photographer, and writer, Phil Grout, “When Jerry DeWitt paints a barn, there's a bit of the gentle clanging of cowbells mixing in with the watercolors. [http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/2012/03/smallwood-artist-jerry-dewitt-draws.html]

“That sound echoes back to his grandfather's Depression-era farm at the end of a lane in Bedford County, Pa. He was just 2 years old when his father left home for good and the youngster was uprooted from Lansing, Mich., to live with his grandparents.

“And in between trips to the pasture to the hand-dug well for another bucket of water, or out to the shed for an arm load of firewood, the sights and sounds and smells of farm life wrapped themselves around Jerry's memory, eventually finding their way to paint and paper more than 30 years later…

After Mr. DeWitt served in the Navy during the Korean War, “became a house carpenter building houses in Maryland and Florida.

“Years later, with his wife, Kris, and four children, Jerry answered his calling — back on the farm, with paints and brushes instead of water bucket and firewood. The family went to Florida for a visit to his wife's parents. Jerry stayed behind in Hagerstown.

“He had a week all to himself. So he went to a five and 10 store in town and bought a set of watercolors and some brushes and then headed out to a barn he'd spotted many times along Interstate-70 on his way to a house construction site.

“DeWitt was 37 when he sat out there on the east side of Cosen's Barn with his new set of paints.

“‘That was it. Time disappeared,’ he says. ‘Something was opening up inside of me, and I could hear those cowbells. I could smell my grandfather's barn.’”

For more information and photographs of Mr. DeWitt and his work, see Phil Grout’s article, “Smallwood artist Jerry DeWitt draws creative inspiration from his farm past,” in the Baltimore Sun on March 17, 2012, about Mr. DeWitt’s work and his well-received and highly successful show at Carroll Community College. [http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-03-17/explore/ph-ce-dewitt-and-wisdom-0318-20120317_1_oil-painting-smallwood-farm-life]

Kevin Dayhoff may be reached at kevindayhoff@gmail.com. Writer Phil Grout contributed to this article.

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“Off Track Art” is an artists’ co-op and gallery located in the historic Liberty Building at 11 Liberty Street – next to the railroad tracks, off of the Sentinel parking lot at the corner of West Main St and MD 27-Liberty St - in historic downtown Westminster, Carroll County Maryland.

Open: Wed-Fri. Noon to 6 PM , Sat. 10 AM - 5 PM. http://offtrackart.blogspot.com/

For news and information on Off Track Art previous to December 15, 2011, you can go to http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/search/label/Art%20Off%20Track%20Art

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