Exhibit by artist battling Parkinson's on display

Gail Paggiola was about 3 years old she met Dona Greaney Winners in preschool. As the two grew up together in Manchester, Paggiola recognized and admired Winners' keen artistic ability."We were in the Craft Club at Manchester High School," said Paggiola. "She would make wonderful jewelry." As an adult, Winners was gifted in quilting, knitting and gardening. But her true flair comes out through her paintings.

Vibrant colors, simple shapes grouped into complex arrangements, shades that sharpen and fade. Each canvas is riotously different, but all are joined by a graceful, unique style. It is all the more remarkable that the artist produced the works while battling Parkinson's disease.Paggiola brought a collection of Winners' works to the South Windsor Public Library, where an exhibit will be on display through the end of July across from the children's section. Winners has resided in Manchester, East Hampton, South Windsor and East Windsor, and now lives in Powhatan, Va.

"She used to be an oil painter until the shaking stopped her," said Paggiola. Winners turned to a new medium: tissue paper oil painting reproduction. Tissues are dyed, allowed to dry, and then torn into shapes which she arranges into floral patterns, animals and other shapes. Browsing through her works reveals that hydrangeas, wisterias, roses and foxgloves are among her floral muses; giraffes, elephants, swans, foxes and hummingbirds are among her animal ones. Some works are 3D, popping off the surface, while in others, the tissue is so flat it appears to be part of the canvas.

Paggiola said that when an art teacher taught Winners tissue paper painting, he was so impressed by her adoption of the method that he urged her to write a book about it, which she did and hopes to publish.Paggiola reports that her friend's case is worsening. "She had deep brain surgery," said Paggiola. "She has tremors on both sides of her brain." Medication once gave her a 20-minute window during which she could do her art. "But now I don't think she even has that," said Paggiola.

The exhibit at the library is a way for Paggiola to recognize Winners' talent. "I'm doing this to validate her as an artist," she said. The art also stands as testimony that those with debilitating illnesses can break free from their restrictions. "Mary [Etter] from the library said it shows that people with Parkinson's don't have to give up everything," Paggiola said.

One shelf displays paintings Winners did for Christmas cards and wedding invitations for family members. Many of the works have special significance to Paggiola, including the occasional inside joke.

Fourteen-year-old Nick Metz says he’s intrigued by art’s ever-changing transformation from one style to the next, referencing the transition from Figurative Impressionism to Abstract art that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The same can be said about his own work, which has evolved throughout grade school from molding a black-and-brown-spotted gray leopard seal out of clay to sketching Japanese cartoons and "fun, random things."

Nick’s most recent work — and most professional — includes Paul Cezanne-esque still life oil paintings and a pastel, Amedeo Modigliani-inspired self-portrait that won the young artist first place in the Sargent Art Brighter World Art Contest this past spring. The national competition is open to students in Grades K-12 and grants the winning child a trip to New York City art museums with a parent and his or her art teacher.

"I had a lot of fun making it," says the humble artist and Hillsdale resident of the drawing, adding it is his favorite artwork to date, and the victory his first big win. Like many artists who reflect nonchalantly on their award-winning masterpiece, Nick says he was just a seventh-grader in his art class having fun when he depicted himself clad in an orange beret with his hand to his chin — his spectacles magnify his blue eyes.

Nick’s portrait, as well as his other award-winning artworks, will be on display at his first exhibit at the Hillsdale Public Library throughout July, with a meet the artist reception on July 16 at 6:30 p.m.Another artwork in the exhibit is "Still Life Study in Glass and Light," which won Nick the Ridgewood Art Institute’s (RAI) "Instructors’ Scholarship" at the 54th Annual Young Artists Show last month.

"I like how you can express so many different things in so many different ways," says Nick about his interest in art. His influences include Spanish Catalan painter Joan Miró and French pointillist painter Georges-Pierre Seurat.

Nick recently graduated from George G. White Middle School from where he earned the Gold Medal in Art. The first artist in his family after his grandmother — who does china painting — Nick says his artistic talent is innate, and a love that he incorporates into his studies at school. Many of his reports have involved some aspect of art, including a paper he wrote on the start of Modern Art for his Language Arts class, and art and clothing in Japan for a Social Studies paper.

The artist, who is also a member of Hillsdale Boy Scout Troop 109 and the Stonybrook Swim and Dive teams, hones his skills at RAI at which he currently takes oil painting lessons. His painting, "Kettle," is also part of his collection currently on display at the library. The artwork, which, despite something Nick’s father, Al, says was his son’s second attempt at oil painting, won him the Scholastic Art Silver Key in the 90th Annual Scholastic National Art Competition held at a reception at the Montclair Art Museum earlier in the year.

Click on their website artsunlight.com.