Sibling Rivalry - April 2010

L. Christy Hastings, Lisa Hastings-Moll and Edward Hastings

Edward Hastings
Edward grew up in Concord, MA. and the surrounding towns. Art in some shape or form has always been a part of the Hastings family. His two sisters are also incredible artists and all three siblings are self-taught. As a child, Edward dabbled in pastels and oil but found water-colors were the most rewarding.

Edward has vacationed in the Pemaquid, Maine area for the past 40 years. He has always been inspired by the beauty there, from the rocks the Pemaquid Light is perched upon to the spectacular sunsets on John’s Bay. It has been the subject of many of his paintings.

Edward and his wife Theresa lived in western Massachusetts for five years, which is the inspiration for some of his most recent work. He now resides in Maynard, MA.

Lisa Hastings-Moll
Lisa, like her brother Edward and sister Christy, is a self-taught water colorist and has been a constant pencil-sketcher throughout her life. She dabbled with oils, dribbled and now dominates with acrylics, and damned the pastel from her life forever. Acrylics and watercolors make her happy. “I suppose I should go back to oils, instead I just over-work the hell out of my watercolors until they look like oils, sort of.” Her work with her teacher and mentor, the noted artist Pat Mattina, gave her the courage to re-embrace acrylics and all matter of materials and mediums. Except for those messy pastels!

She spent many years as a photographer and Creative Director living in Concord, MA and then in Acton with her husband, photographer Robert Moll. She has her B.F.A. from Boston Conservatory and is finishing a B.A. from Boston College.

Lisa spends most of her summer in Pemaquid, ME (43 summers in fact) and has spent time painting on Monhegan Island, ME with world renowned painter and friend Yolanda Fusco. Lisa has painted up and down the Maine coast. She has no time for “the Cape” because, as she puts it, “I haven’t painted all of Maine yet.” which she considers far more beautiful. Lisa claims that all the talent her family possesses comes from her mother, Virginia Adams Hastings, a reluctant, timid artist and the daughter of Dr. Warren Adams who first brought the family to Maine.

Lisa shows her work infrequently. “Showing and selling work is very personal and must be handled by just the right Gallery.” She feels that Nick and Kelli of Gallery Seven in Maynard truly understand the complexity of the artist’s mind, heart and soul and are amazingly supportive of the emotional process of showing one’s work. Lisa now lives in Chelmsford.

For a peek at Lisa’s other work check out: www.4perspectives.com

L. Christy Hastings
" I completed my formal art education in1971. My art teacher, Mrs. Soul-Squasher, effortlessly crushed my eleven year old spirit, and taught me to put the toys away. Dinosaur sculptures apparently were not allowed to have crossed-eyes or bulls-eye-painted bellies. My professional background is in zoology and science education. For fourteen years, I worked as Coordinator of Life Science Interpretation at the Museum of Science in Boston, creating exhibits and teaching. (Also - the museum had fantastic toys). I left the museum to work as a teacher for special needs high school students. It was there that I found my bliss. Identifying heavily with disturbed teenagers, my passion for science and teaching became unleashed. Accidentally blowing stuff up, burning things down, and watching meat rot were all part of my job. It doesn’t get better than that.

However, six years ago, bliss was shattered when I became disabled with CFIDS (chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome). I was forced to walk away from my lifetime devotion to science and teaching. My disability left me with an active yet fuzzy brain - staring at the ceiling from my bed. It was this void that led me back to picking up the pens and brushes of my youth. Though art and science are two very different human endeavors, I was amazed to discover that many scientific skills overlapped with artistic skills: observation, imagination, curiosity, creativity and play. Who Knew?

Pen and Ink:
My initial artistic medium was pen and ink. I wish I could say that it was chosen because of my love of the simple, yet powerful contrast of black and white, and how black and white emphasizes form along with negative and positive space. Though all of this is true, the actual reason for my choice of ink pens and pads was its portability to doctor’s offices and back to bed. Charcoals, pastels and oils are just too messy. I hate messy! I fell in love with the medium because of the control it requires and the challenges that arise. No erasing. No painting over mistakes. Every line I make is permanent. It is all there to see. It’s like dancing naked on a tight rope without a net. You can make small mistakes and hope no one notices. Big mistakes are destruction. Most of my work is a continuous exercise in hiding those mistakes. The challenges of professional scientific research involve similar approaches. The work must be planned. You try to control as much as you can. And creativity is required to address the problems that arise.

Watercolors:
A strange thing happens to me when I have a paint brush in my hand.
Here, I lose all desire for control. I prefer to throw paint and water on the paper and simply splash about. So much for clean and portable. I love to experiment. The watercolor medium offers me all the play I can handle: scratching, cutting, folding, blotting, adding salt, ink, wax, even taking it in the shower with me. I call this “The Splish/Splash Method.” I find this quite similar to informal science. It is playing with things in the world, wondering what would happen if I next did this? Creativity, imagination and curiosity fuel the process. In science this is known as “what happens when I poke it with a stick.” My splish/splash method is purely done for my amusement. It is the process that I love. I never know how the piece will turn out. Design emerges unexpectedly. It is the unknown ending that thrills me.

Subject Matter:
Basically, anything without a straight line."

To view more of L. Christy Hastings' work check out: www.4perspectives.com