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Artist David McBride brings the sea and mountains to Homeland art gallery

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David McBride

Dave McBride – teacher, artist, traveler, family guy.

David McBride’s journey as an artist has brought him from scenic peninsulas to Homeland Center, where he is the artist on exhibit in the Florida Room gallery through September.

He loves the opportunity to bring beautiful scenes for Homeland residents, staff, and visitors to experience.

“I’m so happy to be here,” Dave says. “I want the pictures to be evocative. If you look at a beach scene, I want you to hear the waves.”

Year-round, Homeland’s Florida Room gallery is home to the works of artists made available through the Art Association of Harrisburg. The association works with organizations throughout the region to exhibit the work of member artists in offices and lobbies. Homeland is proud to be the only retirement community in the program.

By profession, Dave is a teacher. For 19 years, he taught special education in the East Pennsboro School District and now teaches physics and science.

The Harrisburg-born and raised McBride first picked up a paintbrush when his father, Wayne, took an art class with the Art Center School and Galleries in Mechanicsburg, PA.

“He left his paint box lying around,” Dave says. “Literally, I used dad’s paintbox. I still have some of his paints.”

Painting became a serious pursuit when Dave’s son and daughter – now 26 and 25 – got older. His “best critic and best supporter” was his mother, Lottie. She would make suggestions, requesting that he paint a bird or flowers.

“We’d sit at the table and paint with Q-tips,” he says. “We had fun. We laughed a lot. The paintings were horrible, and it didn’t matter.”

Dave first took classes at the Art Center School and Galleries with noted, and meticulous, landscape artist Ralph Hocker. Then he studied with the more impressionistic Jonathan Frazier, at Art Association of Harrisburg.

“Ralph said that if you want to learn how to paint a cow, paint 100 cows,” Dave says. He takes that approach to seascapes and mountains, including the series hanging at Homeland of the highest peaks on each continent that are known, collectively, as the Seven Summits.

Two vivid sunrise scenes in the exhibit – “Dawn’s Early Light” and “Corolla Dawn” – were painted at Bethany Beach, a favorite vacation spot. Dave doesn’t sleep in while on vacation, so he got outside with canvas and paints to capture the sun rising over the ocean. Because the scene changes so quickly, he captured what he could in broad outlines of blues and oranges and filled in the rest later.

Custom-selected frames from Smith Custom Framing & Fine Art Gallery in New Cumberland showcase each work’s unique qualities (www.smithcustomframing.com). Dave has shown in group shows, including at the Art Association of Harrisburg. Solo shows are daunting, but he learned to embrace the challenge after Hocker told him it was time to display his work.

“The shows are nerve-wracking,’’ Dave says. “You open yourself up. Every painting that you paint reflects yourself.”

One work shown at Homeland resulted from another challenge accepted. A fellow AAH artist suggested that Dave complete a larger canvas. He picked up a 16-by-20 canvas and depicted a gull, complete with shadows cast under the water splashing onto the shore, and cleverly titled it “Gullable.”

Dave posts his work on his blog, Dave’s Eclectic Art, at davemcbrideacrylics.wordpress.com. His wife, Sandy, liked a turtle that he painted and suggested that he do another. He produced a similar work of a swimming dolphin, lit by streams of sunlight breaking through the water, and framed by colorful sea vegetation. As soon as he posted it on the blog, a viewer asked about buying it.

He and Sandy are active at the church where they married, Camp Hill Presbyterian Church. Every year, she takes a mission trip to a disadvantaged region of Maine, where “for 30 miles around, there’s nothing.”

Just after Dave hung the Homeland show, they took a trip to the Olympic Peninsula, in Washington State. Dave took photos, even as he noted in memory the tonal shades of the majestic scenery and “the muted greens of the mist.”

“There’s a canvas on my easel waiting for me,” he says. “We’ll see what comes out.”

Julie Riker’s open-air paintings bring beautiful scenery to Homeland

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Julie Riker's paintings

Homeland’s art Gallery featuring Julie Riker’s pieces

Step into the Homeland Center art gallery, and the outdoors await. Feel the breeze from the river. Refresh in the coolness of a stone stable. Breathe in the perfume of the lilies.

The spring 2019 exhibit from guest artist Julie Riker features works capturing the fleeting nature of nature herself. Done in the open-air style known as plein air, many reveal fresh perspectives on verdant scenes, as seen through Julie’s eyes.

Julie calls herself “an observational painter.” Whether painting outdoors or inside, she prefers “standing in front of what I’m painting, as opposed to painting from a photograph or making it up out of my head.”

“I like to respond to the place or whatever it is I’m looking at,” she says. “I don’t try to make the painting exactly like it. I have a bit of impressionist style, but I’m trying to be truthful to the colors and values that I’m seeing.”

Julie is the current artist featured in Homeland’s Florida Room gallery. Every quarter, the Art Association of Harrisburg offers an exhibit from a member artist, chosen through a unique program that puts the works of local artists in offices and lobbies throughout the region. Homeland, the only retirement community in the program, hangs the works in the hallway gallery near the Olewine Diner for residents, staff, and guests to enjoy.

Julie discovered her love for art as a child. After graduating from Cumberland Valley High School, she attended the Philadelphia College of Art – now the University of the Arts – as an illustration major. Her first job out of school landed her in the Pennsylvania Capitol, with a company restoring the landmark building’s spectacular Art Nouveau décor. The work involved meticulous cleaning of long-neglected artworks on walls and even ceilings, often done while lying on scaffolding and dabbing at paintings with cotton balls.

“I learned how to do a lot of the gold leaf,” she says. “I went from doing little pictures to doing largescale walls.”

She left that job to start her own business creating faux finishes and murals for private homes and businesses (www.julieriker.com). The springtime exhibit at Homeland was not Julie’s first connection here. She first helped brighten Homeland’s halls by painting a sky on the ceiling of the solarium.

Julie also has taught art groups in the region, including basic drawing classes.

“Drawing skills are so essential for painting,” she says. “If you look at my paintings, the foundation is a solid drawing.”

Julie Riker

Artist Julie Riker enjoying the very definition of the plein air style of painting

Julie’s travels often take her to plein air competitions across the country, where she is an invited or juried artist with several awards to her name. She enjoys a challenge, whether it’s working outside in bad weather or responding to light that changes every 15 minutes during a plein air session.

“You have to work quickly to capture the light,” she says. “You have to establish where the light’s coming from and the shapes of the shadows, because that’s going to change quickly.”

Recently, Julie established a studio, within walking distance of her Camp Hill home that will give her the option to offer classes, she says.

She hopes that getting her paintings out of the studio and into Homeland’s halls helps brighten the day of a viewer or two.

“If someone can think of me and enjoy passing them, that’s a good thing,” she says. “I hope people enjoy looking at the paintings.

A multi-colored sky, through the eyes of Homeland featured artist Shelly Lipscomb

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Shelly Lipscomb

Shelly Lipscomb, featured artist of the quarter, at Homeland Center.

Art had long been a part of Shelly Lipscomb’s life, but for a few years, it took a backseat to career and family. Then, on maternity leave with her second child, her preschool-aged daughter wanted to play with watercolors.

“Why don’t I paint?” thought Shelly. Not long after, a co-worker offered her space in her in-home gallery, and art made its official return to Shelly’s life.

Shelly is Homeland Center’s first featured artist of 2019, with works hanging in the Florida Room gallery. The rotating exhibit appears courtesy of the Art Association of Harrisburg, which recruits local artists to display original works in unexpected settings region-wide. Homeland is the only nursing facility showing works through the program.

Shelly’s work attesting to her love of nature and her unique perspective on the many colors of the sky also appeared at the Elizabethtown Library, WITF Public Media Center, and doctors’ offices. Her love of art first blossomed in middle school, under a teacher who recognized her talent.

“Any time a teacher can encourage a student who has a passion for something, you go for it,” she says today.

She majored in studio art at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, but after graduation, she returned home to Harrisburg to work in the Pennsylvania Capitol. In December 2016, she took early retirement, and art took center stage.

About a year before retiring, Shelly connected with college friend and children’s book author Bena Hartman. Bena wanted a true collaboration with an illustrator – a departure from publishing industry practice that usually assigns illustrators who have little contact with authors. In August 2016, Masthof Press published their first book, “My Elephant-Sized Dream,” about a girl inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech to lasso shooting stars.

The process introduced Shelly to the back-and-forth of collaborating. It also taught her the difference between fine art and illustration, as she learned how to accommodate page edges and bindings, and how to turn ideas into images.

“It gave me a great sense of accomplishment – and my daughters think it’s cool,’’ Shelly says with a smile. “I like being able to show them to have goals and dreams.”

Both of Shelly’s daughters, ages 12 and 15, are artistically inclined. Shelly encourages them while also offering the practical advice she got from her father: “Study whatever you want in college but make sure you know how to type.”

Her older daughter combines her artistic talent with technology, studying biomedical engineering at Dauphin County Technical School. She likes drawing renderings of robots that she and her Robotics Club classmates dream up.

Shelly Lipscomb

Shelly sharing some of the story behind the painting.

In college, Shelly dabbled in student teaching but couldn’t see herself managing roomfuls of children. Today, however, you’ll find her teaching students of all ages, in a variety of settings, from Michaels craft store to Girl Scout meetings.

Shelly believes anyone can draw.

“I can’t draw a straight line, either,” she tells people. “I use a ruler. It can just be you expressing herself.”

Even life’s trials can inspire art, as she knows from the bald self-portrait she produced in 2011 while preparing for her WITF show and simultaneously undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

A favorite memory is a day at a lakeside cottage with her godmother, who insisted she couldn’t paint. Shelly sat to create a watercolor of the pretty lake, “and she did a painting with me, and she liked it. I said, ‘See. You can paint. Don’t say you can’t.’”

In Shelly’s eyes, the sky is “not always blue. It’s not always sunny or cloudy. It’s many different things, just like we are many different people.”

That perspective shows in six miniatures hanging in the Homeland exhibit. Most show a sky, perhaps with a sole bird fluttering through or a sun setting over a beach, with each depicted in different tones, streaked with blue, purple, yellow, or gray.

Her illustrations for “My Elephant-Sized Dream” are on exhibit at Harrisburg City Government Center, and other works will hang at a local reiki spa (on Facebook at Lipscomb Arts).

The Homeland gallery “is wonderful,” Shelly says. When she was hanging her pieces, with help from her husband, Ciro Echeverria, curious residents stopped to enjoy the works and ask questions about her techniques.

Homeland’s rotating exhibits, including photography and mixed media works, give residents something to look forward to, she says.

“Even when you can’t change the scenery outside,’’ Shelly says, “you can change the scenery inside.”

Art of Lilly Knopic brings nature indoors to Homeland Center

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Lilly Knopic pic 1

On a cold, rainy morning, the Homeland Center sunroom was bursting with light. The walls sparkled in jewel tones of red, orange, green, and blue. In some spots, it appeared as if stained glass windows had been installed — and that, it turned out, was the intent of Homeland’s featured artist for spring 2017.

The works of Art Association of Harrisburg members rotate quarterly in Homeland’s art gallery, and on this morning, artist Lilly Knopic was hanging her nature-inspired works. Many depicted forests and woods that Knopic has hiked in, but in fantastical shades and shadows.

“Beautiful,” Homeland resident Geoffrey Davenport told Knopic as she hung her oil paintings. “Why do you like to paint trees?”

Good question, she said.

“I grew up in the woods, in northeastern Ohio,” she said. “I try to capture light and shadow and the shapes they can make when you’re in the forest.”

Homeland is the only nursing facility participating in the Art Association’s exhibit program. The initiative gives exposure to local artists while brightening up unexpected spaces like businesses where people regularly traverse. At Homeland, works hang in the naturally lit, well-traveled hallway gallery created through the generosity of a benefactor.

Knopic’s brightest paintings belonged to her Forest Cathedral Series, based on her photos from Cathedral Forest, part of Cook Forest State Park in western Pennsylvania. The tall canopy of trees inspired the forest’s name, and Knopic started thinking about another key element of cathedrals – stained glass windows.

“I thought that was an interesting play on words, because shadows and light create that stained-glass effect,” she explained.

Lilly Knopic artist pic 2

Knopic is an art educator who has taught at the Art Association of Harrisburg. Professionally, she is a mental health counselor who uses art in her work with children, not just because it allows a creative release but because it presents challenges for children to overcome.

“Art teaches coping skills,” she said. “I think we have the misconception that art is easy and relaxing, but for a lot of our kids, cutting, painting, and using a different material can be very frustrating. It teaches them to ask for help, how to problem solve, and how to use creative thinking because a lot of them aren’t flexible thinkers.”

Homeland and the Art Association choose artists likely to appeal to residents, but as they say, “To each his own.” Resident MJ Muro stopped to view the impressionist-style works. She always appreciates the exhibits, she said, but might need some time to get the gist of this one.

“They’re different,” she said. “I guess you have to let it grow on you. Everybody has a different idea.”

Homeland housekeeper Cherie Moore was trundling a cart through the hall when the vibrant artwork brought her up short.

“I like this because it has a lot of colors,” she said. “Everybody comes by here just to see the art. They always put the most interesting artwork up.”

She especially appreciated the work’s surreal, impressionist style.

“I like when you don’t follow the rules,” she said.

Homeland’s Hummel collection

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Hemmels DisplayIn the 1920 and ‘30s, a Bavarian nun named Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel drew sketches capturing the innocence and charm of the children around her. As her sketches grew popular, German porcelain maker Franz Goebel began producing them in figurines – each piece subject to Sister Maria’s approval.

But while her sketches were lighthearted, her days grew darker. Sister Maria endured Nazi persecution and the deprivations of World War II. A lack of heat and food contributed to her deteriorating health, but she refused to leave her convent community, and she died in 1946, age 37, from tuberculosis. Despite the hardships, her love of childhood joys – a game of ring around the rosy, a little girl on laundry day, a boy hiking through the woods – endured in the famous Hummel figurines.

The Hummel legacy lives on at Homeland Center, where residents and visitors enjoy a display of more than 150 Hummel figurines and plates donated by resident Lou Hepschmidt in memory of her husband, John Hepschmidt.

“Other places did not have the same ambience and décor that Homeland has, and the same treatment of the residents,” she says. “I am so pleased with the way they treat everybody here. I know I’m treated royally. I have often told people to be careful what you ask for, because you’re going to get it, whether you want it or not. That’s the way they are here. The Hummel collection fits right in.”

John Hepschmidt started collecting Hummels during Chamber of Commerce trips to Germany in the 1950s. Lou picked up the habit after they married in 1966 and, she admits, “kind of got carried away.” Her first purchase with her own money depicted a young mail clerk. She expanded the collection by buying pieces that reflected her interests and family life.

“Mostly, I bought figures that represented what I did,” she says. “Some might be knitting or doing cross-stitch, which I like to do.”

The collection grew so large that the Hepschmidts had two massive cabinets built for their dining and living rooms. After she chose to live at Homeland, Lou felt that the collection – with each piece hand-painted to exacting standards – belonged there, too.

The two cabinets were transported to Homeland, and there, Hepschmidt arranged the display as exactingly as any Hummel artisan, pairing plates with matching figurines. In the Homeland Center chapel, a small cabinet was installed for religious-themed figurines. At Christmastime, Hepschmidt arranges a Hummel nativity scene.

Hepschmidt knew that Homeland Center would respect the precious collection built piece by piece with her husband. Sometimes, she gives talks for residents to enjoy, sharing the fascinating history behind the porcelain.

“Everybody I talk to tells me they love them, and every time they look, they see a different one,” she says. “It’s a history lesson, along with the beauty of the pieces.”