MARBLEHEAD—For Marjorie and Louis Rizzo, beauty can be found in just about anything.
“Often when we are out at restaurants or at the mall grabbing a bite to eat I’ll just start sketching people,” Louis said. “I love looking and observing people and scenes.”
“I love all of it,” Marjorie said before describing the process of finding a potential scene for a painting and then transferring that image to the canvas at their home studio in Revere.
That passion will be on display when they display their latest exhibit, “Making a Splash,” in the Stetson Gallery at the Universalist Church of Marblehead.
The Rizzo’s, who have been married for 52 years, originally found a passion in stoneware sculpting, establishing Hollis Center Pottery. They were recognized for the quality of their work, even being commissioned to create works for celebrities and performers like Billy Joel and Willie Nelson.
Eventually the couple turned to watercolors and the shore for inspiration. Louis and Marjorie are members of the 130-year-old New England Watercolor society.
“The clay got too heavy,” Marjorie said. “We love to sketch at the shore, enjoying the cry of the birds, the pounding of the surf, the smell of seaweed and low tide, and the sounds of clanking cleats on masts,”
This shore-inspired art includes works like “Puffins”, featuring a group of the birds perched on rocks surrounded by water in Bar Harbor, Maine. “Valhalla” shows a harbor scene inspired by the shores of Ogunquit, Maine with notorious gangster Whitey Bulger’s gun-running ship of the same name present.
The “Making a Splash” exhibit will be open from Oct. 11 through Nov. 7
Stetson Gallery curator, Michele Martin Albee is one fan of the couple that is excited for their latest show.
“Watching them together is being in the presence of true love,” she said.
