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Madelaine LaRose gets to the art of the matter

By George Pelletier - Milford Bureau Chief | Jun 13, 2020

NASHUA – In the past, Madelaine LaRose has described herself as an “emerging artist,” sometimes capturing her subject on a digital platform to transform one art piece into another.

A graduate of Rivier College, with a B.A. in English Literature, LaRose has studied her craft with local artists such as Kay Kandra, Dorothy Goodwin and James Aponovich. Her work in different medias has ranged from pen, pencil and ink to watercolor, collage and acrylics. But she has a favorite that’s her go-to.

“I guess I would have to say pastels,” she said, “which I took up six years ago. I liked not just the richness of the color, but the ability to work more with my hands as a tool rather than having to use a brush as an extension.”

Sometimes, Larose said she would push a color with her fingers or lift out a color, so she feels “more involved in the process.”

LaRose, a lifelong Nashua resident and a former English teacher, remarked that art has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. She taught for nearly 20 years at Elm Street, then a junior high; she also taught at Nashua High School North.

“In the years that I was actively teaching, it was much more difficult to pursue that – art,” she recalled. “I frequently resorted to my camera as an artistic tool. Actually, when I was teaching, I did a collaborative project for a couple of years, with my students and the art teacher, which was a fun thing to do.”

LaRose said that collaboration worked in both directions.

“I would have my students do some type of creative writing,” she said. “And then I would send them over to her and her students would then use those writings as inspiration for their artwork. And sometimes we did it the opposite way, where she did the art project first and sent some samples to my class, who would use those as inspiration for a writing piece.”

When she works on her paintings today, she also has many images that she shot with her camera that she uses as a reference point.

“I have accumulated a portfolio of photographs that I resort to for inspiration,” LaRose said. “I try not to replicate everything exactly – then, what’s the point? I have a photograph of it already. I just use it as a basis for my composition and sometimes find it necessary to leave some things out.”

LaRose explained that as she paints, she might shift things around or crop the image that she shot, creating a different portrait than what she captured on her camera. LaRose said she draws inspiration from different things and in different ways.

“Sometimes it’s a series of photos that I took at a particular location that I’ll use for inspiration,” she said. “For example, I did a series of ‘Apple Orchard in Bloom’ a few years back. More recently, I used a series of photographs that I took at the Coll Farm in Dover which has this really large sunflower field.”

Other times, LaRose said that she finds autumn scenes particularly inspirational.

“Again, sometimes I just look through my photographs,” she commented. “Sometimes I’m surprised and will remember what it was about the subject that inspired me and why I took the photo in the first place.”

LaRose has never done oil painting, mainly starting with sketching and watercolor. The ladder, she shared, wasn’t her media.

“I did quite a few watercolors and was surprised that I hit the mark,” she said with a laugh. “But I started to realize that it just wasn’t the best media for me.”

With the new normal and the health crisis, LaRose said her art has been a bit of a life saver.

“Especially in those days in March and April, when everybody was isolated,” she shared. “It was hard to get going during the day, particularly for someone who is retired. I really had to push myself to do something with my time, and art was my saving grace. It gave me a focus and a purpose.”

Over the last 12 weeks, LaRose created a fair and consistent amount of work.

The time it takes for her to complete a piece depends the subject matter, on her approach, and usually will spend more time on a pastel than an acrylic.

“Sometimes it’s the opposite,” she said. “I tend to be a detail oriented person. I sometimes force myself to take a looser approach to I can challenge myself. I might eliminate some detail so I can focus more on the mood of a piece.”

Despite the COVID-19 crisis, LaRose is optimistic that artists continue to move in the right direction and said that our local artist community has grown considerably over the past few decades.

“I think this has,” she said. “I’ve seen Nashua become a lot more art focused in the past decade. Like I said, since my retirement in 2007, I’ve been much more active in the local arts scene than I was previously. In the late ’70s I was also very active.”

LaRose does not participate in the Greeley Park art show because it involves great time and expense and as someone who might rely on herself, LaRose said it’s too much of an effort. In the ’70s, as it was a much smaller affair, they would put up snow fencing for artists to hang their work.

“There were very few people then who had all the tents and such,” she said.

For people interested in accessing LaRose’s art, she said she displays in as many local venues as she can but with the health epidemic, “everything is closed for now.”

“I have a few pieces on display in the window at the former Alec’s,” she said. “I belong to the Hollis arts society and they have a gallery in the community council building on West Pearl. I have some hanging at the Rogers Memorial library in Hudson as well. But again, almost every place I have some stuff on display, these places have been closed to the public.”

Ironically, LaRose brought some of her work to the Jaffrey Civic Center one week before the stay-at-home order was issued.

“It’s a good thing I keep an inventory of what I have and wear it is,” she said.

LaRose said that downtown’s outdoor dining expansion is “wonderful” and commended the city for doing it.

“I’m so proud of the city of Nashua for taking that initiative and doing that,” she said.

In his book, “What is Art,” Leo Tolstoy asserts that art is a form of consciousness. In her words, LaRose said art is very personal.

“Almost everyone and every artist you speak to is going to have a different answer,” she said. “I think art is a creative expression by an individual in a variety of media and a variety of ways. If you think back one hundred years ago, and you had an artist like Picasso, who was turning out pieces that many people scoffed at and said, ‘that’s not art.’ But of course, it was. So, some people don’t consider photography art, but I disagree.”

While the average snapshot may not be art, on the other hand, it might.

“I know many photographers who turn out works of art,” LaRose said. “I have friends that turn out fiber art. Some of them don’t consider themselves artists but I look at what they’ve done, and I say, ‘That is a work of art.'”

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