Art inspired by nature

by Kathy Duff
Grand Island Dispatch, April 20, 2007

Grand Island’s Kath Schifano upholds the ‘Plein Aire’ tradition.

The great outdoors is her studio. This is where Grand Island resident and retired teacher Kath Schifano uses oils and pastels to put nature to canvas and paper in the tradition of a discipline called “Plein Aire” (literally “in the open air”) painting.

Retired for two years from the Niagara Falls school district where she taught art to elementary students, high school and advanced placement students, Schifano has now filled her home and studio on Huth Road with familiar scenes from Grand Island and from other beauty spots in Western New York. In addition, two of her “Rose Series” paintings, done in pastels on paper, hang in the Member’s Gallery at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Love of Nature

“I’m using things I’ve heard myself say as a teacher,” she says. “I spent all these years helping kids with their pictures.” Now she really feels that she is truly an artist and is diligently pursuing her love of natural settings for her work. She creates at a remarkable painting-per-week rate, packing up box and easel most Thursdays to join the Niagara Frontier Plein Aire painters for “paint outs” in locations such as Buckhorn State Park, Forest Lawn Cemetery and Buffalo’s waterfront. “Plein Aire” painters follow in the footsteps of greats such as Monet and Renoir, but they trust their own senses and perceptions to capture what is right in front of them.

“Eighty-five percent of what I do (in a painting) is done right away and then I touch up,” Schifano says, emphasizing the immediacy of painting an outdoor scene in changing light and weather conditions.

Married for 34 years to husband Carl, also a potter, photographer and painter who is currently on staff at Niagara Frontier Publications on the Island, Schifano was educated at the state universities at Fredonia and Buffalo. Her career began on a quieter track as a teacher, where she focused more on developing the skills of her students. “There’s more out there for art students now.”

A ‘Practiced Eye’

But with stepping away from the schools, she is free to follow where her art leads, including the development of a Web site. Her practiced eye sees that the Web site “needs fine tuning” in its presentation, but the important information is there, including links to her professional associations, which include the Albright-Knox, the Castellani Art Museum, Impact Art Gallery, the Kenan Center in Lockport and International Plein Aire Painters.

Displayed, too, online are her “Rose Series” and “Niagara Scenes.” The observer gets a nice glimpse of the skill and attention to color and detail Schifano uses in capturing, for instance, Niagara Falls in “Niagara’s Morning Mists,” a 12-by-18 inch pastel she created on the Worldwide Paintout with the International Plein Aire painters in 2004.

Kath Schifano’s studio in her Huth Road home is open by appointment. She accepts work by commission and has fine art prints of her work available. Contact information is available at www.kschifano.com.

Kath Schifano’s oil painting of the lighthouse at Erie Basin Marina in Buffalo.