Light on Water

The odd looking new boat, seen on the Connecticut River last summer is actually a floating studio that Hadley artist Lewis Bryden uses to paint river scenes at all times of the day and in all weather. “It’s like painting from your back porch,” he says, “only you can move your porch, and point it in any direction you want.”

The thirty year-old-houseboat, nicknamed the “Float des Artistes,” is a cabin eight feet wide by twenty feet long containing painting racks and shelves of art supplies. Two easels stand in the corner and there is a portable lantern hanging on the wall. This allows the painter to work in the early morning or late sunset, and in all kinds of weather.

Bryden will be exhibiting the twenty or more paintings that he did last summer, at R. Michelson Galleries this May-June 2006