Mary Pyche
As a youngster, my interest in art started at my grandfather’s knee when he would draw a cup and saucer for me and ask me to draw something for him. He did great cups and saucers. My grade school didn’t offer art, so I took classes at the YMCA. My high school didn’t offer art, so I took classes at Mass Art in the summertime. I decorated my high school for the Junior Prom.As a young adult and owner of various roller skating rinks around New England, I painted mostly when the need arose: murals to decorate the rinks, flyers to advertise the rinks, even wrote, directed and coreographed film commercials for TV and the drive-in movie theater. Currently you can see my murals at Skateland in Bradford, Ma.
In 1982, a friend encouraged me to take classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I studied there for 10 years, nights, weekends and summers, mainly studying with the renowned artist, Joel Babb, who believed in the old system of academic training. Joel is a featured artist at Vose Galleries, Boston, and was one of the first artists to be invited when they started to feature living artists. I received a thorough training in painting, drawing, sculpture, and design, as well as art history and other related subjects.
In the summer of 1983, I studied at the Art Students League in NY City, concentrating on oil painting, still life, portrait, the model with Jack Faragasso and David Laffel, and life drawing with Gustav Rehberger. I also studied and worked with stained glass. I studied philosophy at Harvard Extension.
I am now devoting myself to painting after working for 11 years in an administrative position at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a graduate school at Tufts University (retired in May 2000), and running rinks and coaching artistic competative roller skaters for over 40 years.
I have taken workshops in Maine, Florida, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Canada and Italy, and have joined the Newburyport Art Association (NAA), the Abstract Art Group of New England (AAGNE), the Rockport Art Association and the North Shore Art Association to build friendships with area artists and gain local recognition.
I maintain a studio and presentation space in my home, and create and publish my website and blogs. I am currently trying to paint every day and considering returning to art school to finish my degree.
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