Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/603345
Winter. New England's most bracing season. It is a time of year that evokes strong sentiments, whether joy or dismay. Regardless, there is beauty to behold during the blisteringly cold months—it's hard to argue otherwise. There are the abandoned snow-laden fields; the impossibly blue sky and blinding sun; muscular trees, black against white; gray tones that give mood to a day; remnant berries, shriveled but hanging on; ice-crusted rivers refusing to stop their flow; air so fresh it hurts; the stark lines of barns, steeples, and old homes—all so plainly revealed during the "bleak" season. Perhaps it takes an artistic temperament to appreciate its profundity. One thing is clear: The painters whose wintry works we see here all illustrate a deep sensitivity to the season's quiet offerings. 252 SNOW-FLAKES Out of the bosom of the Air Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) Jeff Weaver is one rugged New Englander. He can be found paint- ing en plein air during a full-fledged snowstorm; if the scene disappears in a squall, he just waits for it to clear. With an umbrella overhead, hands wrapped in wool, and neo- prene boots on his feet, he bites the bitter bullet and sets to painting. "I just keep rubbing my hands to- gether," says Weaver. "After about a half hour, I am okay. I just get in the zone. I don't care if my hands freeze, I keep going." "Winter has its own mood," says the oil painter. Though he appreci- ates (and expertly captures) cloudy, muted days, he notes, "Winter scenes can be very colorful, some- times more colorful than any other time of year." A fondness for Gov- ernor's Hill in Gloucester and all the houses "tumbling up the hill" have him returning to that spot time and again, though his work reflects his talent for seeing some- thing new with every visit. "That hillside is very challenging," he says. "To get the right movement of snow and light going across the picture; you can't just do it the way it is, you have to try to figure out some kind of pattern so your eye travels through the picture." Weaver attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he studied figure drawing but never took painting courses. He developed his technique by reading and viewing museum works—look- ing to see how other artists han- dled challenges he faced. "I think I am a person who learned how to learn things," he says. "I know how to absorb information." Of his influences Weaver says there are many, both known and obscure. He appreciates the way artist Egon Schiele treats buildings; he loves the darks of Rembrandt