3 minute read
2020 Pops by the Sea Commemorative Artist
Cynthia Packard, 2020 Pops by the Sea Commemorative Artist
WHERE DO ARTISTS DRAW
INSPIRATION FROM? For painter Cynthia Packard, 25 years ago when she purchased her studio on Bradford
it’s found in the world of nature and creativity that is just with her talent, resulting in artwork that showcases her one
steps from her Provincetown studio.
It is that magical setting that informs the latest piece she created for this year’s Pops by the Sea commemorative painting. “From living on Cape Cod and living in an artists’ community and seeing sunsets and thinking about music idea where I was going with this painting. I just made some
I love, this all came together in this painting,” she says just days before she unveiled the stunning piece live on Facebook as part of the Arts Foundation’s Home Is Where The Art Is virtual arts festival.
Titled, “A Symphony,” it depicts a subject—an abstract sunset juxtaposed with a moon—that Packard admittedly is not known for. “To me, painting a sunset is the worst cotton candy in the world,” she says. This creative process is what excites Cynthia, offering her a Sometimes they say I am a scared little kitten and other
It’s a bold statement that one would expect from Packard, whose career has been defined by making similarly daring ones with her work.
A native of Princeton, New Jersey, Packard was born to Max Bohm, who was instrumental in establishing Provincetown’s art colony. Her mother, Anne Packard, is renowned for her sea and landscape paintings.
While Cynthia followed in their footsteps, she has forged her own path. After graduating from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1981 with a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture, she moved to Provincetown to pursue a career as an artist. Street, not far from the Pilgrim Monument.
This is where Cynthia’s imagination and emotion intersects of-a-kind style, which has been exhibited throughout the country. “My paintings can be very edgy and agitated and active or soothing and calming,” she says.
Each one starts as a blank canvas, and Cynthia never knows what the end result will be; it’s the same approach she took for her virtual representation of this year’s Pops by the Sea. “The painting came out of me,” she says. “I had no marks and then those marks told me what to do next. It was like an event that took place by me being present and listening and responding to my own voice.”
pathway to learn more about herself and the world around her. “You can’t separate the person from the art,” she says. “You paint who you are. So what do my paintings say? make art; her great grandfather was the noted impressionist
times, they say, I’m bold, honest and unafraid.”
There’s a spirituality to Cynthia’s work that can be witnessed in “A Symphony,” which she finished during the height of the pandemic. While the piece is dark and abstract, Cynthia focuses on the sun setting, which she says is “a metaphor for the symphony playing by the sea—the explosion of color and light with this darkness behind it. The symphony is playing as it’s getting dark and there’s this beautiful energy of music.”
Success didn’t come immediately, but she persisted. “I waitressed and started painting, painting, painting,” she recalls, eventually saying farewell to her waitressing gig The work is a testament to the power of art, a place where we can all find meaning, hope, light, and comfort, especially during life’s most difficult moments.
