LORRAINE LAUZON RETROSPECTIVE: One Creative Life

Starting June 5 at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, the Berkshire Art Association (BAA) will present a memorial retrospective, One Creative Life, featuring the work of Pittsfield artist, Lorraine Lauzon. The exhibit will be open through June 19, Wednesday through Saturday, Noon to 5 p.m., in the Lichtenstein Gallery, 28 Renne Avenue, Pittsfield, MA.

On Saturday, June 5, 5 – 7 p.m., the Berkshire Art Association will host an Opening Reception, which will be attended by Lorraine’s family. The reception is free and open to the public. The family hopes that many of the pieces in this exhibit will find permanent homes in Berkshire County after the show ends.

A special event – An Evening of Readings - featuring Lauzon’s written works will be held at the Lichtenstein Center on Wednesday, June 16 at 7 p.m. J.Peter Bergman and friends will read from her stories, essays and poems. The public is invited to participate.

Lauzon’s world travels with her beloved husband Paul, her love of children and music, and most especially, her Berkshires are the frequent subjects of her work. The gallery show will feature a wide range of Lauzon’s paintings done in oil, acrylic, and watercolor. Lorraine particularly loved to work in ink and watercolor wash, often in a playful vein depicting familiar places and situations. Many of her landscapes are punctuated with families and people going about their everyday lives.

Her Tanglewood drawings present the beautiful setting and people leisurely enjoying the ambiance. In depicting the orchestra playing or the maestro conducting (usually Ozawa), Lorraine visually expressed the spirit of music in a joyful and colorful way.

Lorraine often worked in mixed media, and some of her finest pieces include her kimono series collages. The Lichtenstein exhibit will include one – many more are currently being exhibited at The Berkshire Museum’s Berkshire Artists Gallery.

Lorraine spent most of her life as a working artist – painting, writing, exhibiting, and teaching. As a designer, she drafted for GE, designed shoes for a company in Lynn, created needlepoint canvases for area shops, and created business promotional art. She designed a coloring book for the Pittsfield Bicentennial Commission in 1976. Late in life, Lorraine created posters, made costumes, applied makeup and devised props for the Berkshire Community College's Children's Circus Camp.

Throughout her life, Lorraine taught art and writing to children and adults including 30 years of children's art classes at the Berkshire Museum. The Williams College Museum of Art commissioned her to design and present hands-on family projects related to Charles and Maurice Prendergast's work. For fourteen summers after her “retirement,” Lorraine ran away to the BCC circus camp, where she taught another generation of young artists.

Lauzon exhibited her work locally in one-woman shows at the Berkshire Athenaeum, Berkshire Bank, the Berkshire Museum, Dalton Public Library, MCLA and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Pittsfield. She participated in the group exhibits of the Berkshire Art Association, Berkshire Artisans, the Chester Art League, Pittsfield's ArtAbout, the Pittsfield Art League, the Sheffield Art League and with the National League of American Pen Women. Her work is in many local private and business collections including the Red Lion Inn.

Some of her many awards were first prize National League of American Pen Women, first prize Sheffield Art League, a Williams College Museum of Art Purchase Award and a Red Lion Inn Purchase Award.

Lorraine was a high honors graduate of Lynn English High School in 1944. While working during the day, she attended the School of Practical Art in Boston, now the Art Institute of Boston. In 1994 she earned an Honorary Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley College. Lorraine was an active member of the Berkshire Art Association and was its recording secretary for over 40 years. She helped with and often showed in BAA shows for most of those years.

Lorraine Lauzon died unexpectedly last April at 82 – just days before she was to help hang the 2009 BAA Fellowship Show.

The Berkshire Art Association has established a college student fellowship award in Lorraine’s memory. The first award was presented in April to North Adams artist, Merritt Fletcher, a 2010 graduating senior at the Massachusetts College of Art. Donations to the Lorraine Lauzon Fellowship may be sent to the Berkshire Art Association, P.O. Box 385, Pittsfield, MA 01202.