BROOKINGS They call themselves the basement painters. They meet every Thursday from noon to about 4 p.m. in the basement of the Brookings Arts Council, a former Carnegie library.
The basement is very roomy and lends itself to spreading out and getting a bit messy as needed. Its a sturdy structure, historic and well-purposed into something meaningful in service to the Brookings area and its residents. Sometimes there as many as eight artists, each working on their own paintings at their own pace.
This Thursday afternoon there are five of them: three women and two men. Theyre each working on their own on a watercolor. As many as eight people have showed up now and then; but these five are the regulars and have been showing up for 20 years or longer. They chat quietly now and then and enjoy some treats. Today its store-bought cookies. They do have a goal in sight for their efforts, but it has no timeline for getting there. No timetables, no deadlines, each painting whatever their muse moves them to.
Eventually were going to have our own exhibit, Linda Hoffelt, an art teacher from the Brookings school system and retired since 2008, said: Its going to be those people that work at the (Brookings) Arts Council: the basement painters, the wood carvers and the life-drawing group. Were all going to have a show together.
Laughing, she added, Im a member of all three groups. Shes been painting in the basement since her retirement and been a wood carver since 1987. The life-drawing group sometimes works with live models.
Ginny Weeks was working on a winter scene, with a hint of fallen snow on evergreens.
Dr. Roger Boomersbach, a retired chiropractor, has been painting in the basement for the past 20 years. There used to be a group in Arlington, he noted. They folded up and I came here and joined this group.
Within the past couple weeks I started doing watercolors, David Bessey explained. I had been painting acrylics. He had worked for Trek bicycles for about 25 years, retiring in 2015. I did a stint as an art student down in Vermillion, doing photography and print making, mostly. As a photographer, he worked with a 35 mm SLR camera and used black-and-white film, which can be hard to come by these days.
I like to do watercolors, Mavis Gehant said. Im very much a beginner. Shes been with the group for about eight years and finds the atmosphere very calming.
If theres a theme to what the artists are doing, its a simple one: We like doing what were doing.
Contact John Kubal at [email protected].
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