Anne Cady: Held by the Mountains

"Through my paintings I am able to journey back to that slower country rhythm of the past, away from this hurry up world and into those open spaces that are so quickly disappearing."

Anne Cady’s color-saturated paintings are inspired by and pay homage to the pastoral beauty of the Vermont landscape that surrounds her. Her paintings are playful and bold, full of vibrant color and spirit as she abstracts the harmonious patterns of fields, forests, and mountains that repeat themselves within the landscape. This exhibit features new works as well as pieces from Cady’s personal collection.

Anne's home and studio are located in New Haven, VT. She exhibits extensively throughout New England and her work is in over 800 private collections throughout the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Europe. Before embracing a career as a full time painter, Anne was an art educator who founded and directed The Children's Art School for 25 years. Find out more online at annecady.com.

Artist's Statement:

Through my paintings, I am able to journey back to that slower country rhythm of the past, away from this hurry up world and into those open spaces that are so quickly disappearing. While on this ride, I can be playful with the harmonious patterns of fields, forests, and mountains that repeat themselves again and again within the landscape.

With my imagination as my guide, I take what I see in this place and make it my own. I am not ruled by what is real. It is the bold and vibrant colors, packed with their emotionally charged energy, that lift me and move me in the direction that I need to go. I respond to them as they do to each other and together we head off. My paint is layered with care to bring life to the colors and in turn the painting. The approach I take is a spirited one that fills me with anticipation as I thread my own story through the story of this land.

Whenever I begin a new piece of work I arrive with my brush and heart in hand. So, it is fitting that my four children, my husband, my three grandsons and twin granddaughters, and the loved ones who have passed, are often present in one form or another. They are the open fields and quiet country roads that draw me in like welcoming arms and they are the trees and hedgerows that come together and move apart. Sometimes there is the lone, deserted barn in the field conveying a sense of longing or solitude but often a lively spirit of connection and community is present in the work and prevails throughout.

The barns, outbuildings, and distant mountains also have a story to tell. They are families, and they are friends, and they live together in the landscape. When weather is coming, the trees dance in the wind on the edges of the fields or gather together in preparation for the storm. The old farm barns stand their ground with great dignity. They have been around for a long time and deserve a setting of honor. The surrounding mountains hold and proudly protect the land. The sky can either hold me here in the everyday or free me to imagine what lies beyond. The sky holds the power, the light, the mystery, and the magic of life beyond. It pulls me beyond that last distant mountain or hovers above with great intensity like a mother bear watching over her cubs.

As a painter, I make this journey alone but some days my brush is in another's hand. Those are the good days where everything flows. At times, the road can get rough and there are struggles but this is my place here. Vermont keeps me painting.