Longtime Granby residents Don and Marty Wilmot and Sally Markey gifted the town with two significant pieces of art at the Nov. 6 Board of Selectmen meeting. The Wilmots presented a large print of a painting by Jane C. Lowerre that depicts 32 buildings and scenes from around Granby.
Marty made the picture unique by getting the signature of a person associated with each of the buildings or places represented. Sometimes the signature was of the original or current home owner, the library director, the principal of a school, the postmaster of the post office. Once re-framed, the picture hung in the law office of Marty’s husband, Don. One day, Don noticed a woman client spending a significant amount of time studying the picture. He asked her if she knew the artist. “I AM the artist,” the woman replied, much to Don’s surprise.
Don has recently retired and the Wilmots decided that the picture needed to hang in a Granby location where residents could enjoy recognizing the locations and associated signatures. An appropriate place will be selected; for now, it is located in a conference room in the town hall.
While the Lowerre name may not be familiar to many Granby folks, the name Sally Sargent Markey certainly is, for she is one of our popular current active artists. Markey paints, makes jewelry, paper ornaments and soft creatures for children.
When selecting items for the recent Granby Artists Association Open Studio Tour, she came upon a giclee print of a watercolor she painted some years ago of the Allen Cider Mill building. As with the Wilmots, Markey thought that this long-ago vision of a highly recognizable structure might be something that town residents would enjoy, so she offered it to the BOS and it was accepted during the same Nov. 6 board meeting.
