Pastel and Oil / Still Life and Landscape
Sherry prefers to paint directly from life, and although she experiments in other media, her mainstays are oil and pastel. Sherry joined Gallery 31 Fine Art back when it was located at 31 Main Street and led it to the new, modern location across the street on Main Street Square in 2011. Eleven years ago Sherry assumed sole ownership of the gallery, now celebrating its twenty third year.
Sherry directs and manages gallery operations, determines the artists represented, displays the art, creates the marketing and advertising, and engages with visitors.
She enjoyed an exciting and successful career in senior management at the University of Massachusetts for thirty years then turned to art full-time in 2002. She stepped down in November 2014 after serving four years as President of the Pastel Painters Society of Cape Cod and seven years on its Board, a non-profit organization with 250 members worldwide.
Sherry is honored to have studied with many of the artists she represents at Gallery 31 today, including Richard McKinley, Deb Quinn-Munson, Tony Allain, and Jeanne Rosier Smith. To Sherry, it's all about the educating clients about what’s involved in creating fine art, and building trusting relationships with artists and the collectors. As a painter, it's about developing the concept and enjoying the process, the getting there. "Life happens while you're 'doing other things,' so you have to savor each moment and go for the gold. Communicating through the visual speaks volumes."
Always the educator, Sherry enjoys teaching and mentoring students, particularly in a one-on-one or small group painting experience. Gallery visitors benefit from Sherry's knowledge and experience as an artist; she shares some of the principles and processes artists use in creating the beautiful works at the gallery. She will do a quick on site demo to engage visitors in a better understanding of various painting techniques, from using a palette knife in oil painting to doing an “underpainting” for soft pastel work.
Other mentors who left their creative mark on Sherry along her path include landscape oil painters Don Demers and Joe Pacquet and pastelists Susan Ogilvie, Bill Hosner, Liz Haywood-Sullivan, Marla Baggetta, Robert Carsten and Margaret Dyer, and still life artists in oil Daniel J. Keys and Katherine Ann Hartley, a protegée of David Leffel.
Sherry holds degrees from Lasell College and the University of Massachusetts, and continued her graduate study at Boston University. Education has been a part of her life always, and she continues to teach in order to explore new ideas and keep fresh.