Current Art Show at Town Hall!
By Barbara Zeughauser, Town Art Curator
The Town of Somerset is pleased to announce its next exhibit in the Town Hall Gallery, entitled Art to Heart, displaying the paintings of Mary Vinograd, Somerset Elementary School’s very own crossing guard! Mary works ten hours per week in Somerset and says that being the crossing guard in Town is the very best retirement job on Earth!
Mary enjoys painting portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and playful artworks. The Town Hall exhibit will include several of Mary’s paintings of hearts (in a variety of sizes). Her paintings will be a perfect gift for Valentine’s Day.
Mary was raised in a third-generation military family, traveling with her family across the Atlantic to the Pacific while attending a new school almost every year. Drawing pictures was her refuge. Mary’s parents raised her and her seven siblings to be curious and creative. Mary’s father was an amateur painter and cartoonist, while her mother spent her younger adult years employed at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. Wherever they were stationed, the family visited local museums and explored the art, music, and culture of the region.
Mary began studying art formally in the 1970’s at several universities in North Carolina. In the years that followed, she painted, exhibited, taught art, managed a community gallery, and worked in art sales and framing. She moved to the D.C. area in the 1980s, settling in Bethesda, where she and her husband raised their four children. In 2019, her midlife career in social work was completed, and now Mary is back at the easel painting full-time (except for her time in Somerset).
Mary’s Art to Heart exhibit will remain on display at the Town Hall from Tuesday, January 30 through Friday, May 3. All of her work is for sale, again, just in time for Valentine’s Day. Please stop by the Town Hall during regular business hours to see Mary’s Art to Heart exhibit.