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A love affair

with light and hadow

“How Many Times” 12” x 8”
feature by Kate Shaffer
phot s courtesy of artist Randy Eckard

The Randy Eckard Gallery celebrates an artist’s lifelong love affair with light and shadow.

When Randy Eckard moved to Vermont in the early 1980s, he fell in love with the unique quality of the New England light that
was so different from his childhood home of North Carolina.

A potter in training at the time, with a background in commercial art from Ringling College of Art and Design, Randy traded clay
for a paint brush, and began a lifelong pursuit of light and shadow.

“A friend and I would do some plein air painting together,” Randy said of his self-training in watercolor. “I fell in love with
New England architecture. The angles, and how the light bounced off the back of an old farmhouse, the grasses leading up to it, a
screen door hanging from its hinges.”

Randy moved to Blue Hill in the early 1990s, and felt he had come to a painter’s paradise. “If the light in Vermont felt unique,

then the coast of Maine was that quality of light on steroids,” he said of how his adopted state informs his work. “I can’t imagine
being anywhere else.”
“There is a wealth of subject matter here. Along the coast the villages are close together, but each has its own character and
charm. I wander around until something stops me in my tracks, and forces me to pay attention.”

Randy, who now paints from photographs in the comfort of his studio, says that when he discovers a subject on his forays up and
down the coast, he tries to spend some time in the place, to get a feel for it.

“I guess I’ve always been an observer,” Randy said about what catches his eye. “Growing up, my friends used to laugh at me.
We’d be out and about, and I’d stop and point out some tiny thing that I had noticed. I had a different way of looking at things.”

Randy’s dry brush watercolors are detailed and realistic, and often compared to the paintings of Andrew Wyeth. And Randy is
just fine with that. “Wyeth is my hero,” he said. “If I’m mentioned in the same sentence, I feel honored. But I’m not trying to copy
him. I paint what I see, and what inspires me.”
The Randy Eckard Gallery in Blue Hill opens in the third week of June, and stays open through the end of September. You can
find the gallery’s seasonal hours and more information about the artist at randyeckardpaintings.com.

29 Pleasant St., Blue Hill, ME 04614 (207) 374-2510 info@randyeckardpaintings.com continued on the next page
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