Professional artist greets buyer

Hamilton, Ohio – Fitton Center painting students create excellent artwork.

No surprise there.

Maybe less of a surprise to read that sentence on the Fitton Center website, where – let’s be honest – stories tend to have a pro-Fitton, pro-art and pro-education slant.

How about some objective data?

Sure. Creative Aging student Jean O’Connell sold two of the three acrylic paintings she entered in the recent FUN exhibition highlighting student work in the Fitton Center Community Gallery. Getting paid for pieces she made in her Friday afternoon class - Feeling Fernald and Peering into Picasso - officially elevates her to the ranks of professional artist. “I’m finding myself in my 70s,” O’Connell said with a laugh.

Her buyers? None other than Fitton Center staffers Julia Bailey and Ramona Toussaint.

O’Connell and Toussaint recently posed with Feeling Fernald in the Community Gallery near where the painting hung during the exhibition. The artist had already signed her work, but the opportunity for her and her buyer to meet and chat was special for both.

Just another benefit to being a long-time participant in the Creative Aging program with instructor Chrissy Collopy.

“I don’t think it’s been a decade yet, but I know it’s been more than five years,” O’Connell said. “The painting is great - Chrissy is a wonderful teacher - but for me it’s really more about the community, the people in the class. We’ve become a very close group over the years.”

O’Connell continues to build those bonds – and her painting portfolio - in the next Creative Aging session beginning Friday, September 12. (Collopy also teaches sections on Tuesdays and Wednesdays starting September 9 and 10.)

Interested in exploring your creative side in a painting class? Drawing? Printmaking? Pottery? Sewing? Embroidery? Digital Art? Art Journaling? Mosaics? ‘Zines and bookmaking? We’ve got you covered starting at age 5 and continuing past retirement age. At the Fitton Center or the satellite teaching studio Fitton at the Foundry in Liberty Center.

The Fall I education session officially opens Monday September 8. The Fitton Center offers early-bird discounts to students who register by Monday, September 1. Scholarship applications for a free class or workshop are due Friday, August 29.

Interested in purchasing art from a Fitton Center exhibition? Please contact Director of Exhibitions Cathy Mayhugh at cathy@fittoncenter.org or call 513-863-8873, ext. 122.

The Fitton Center for Creative Arts is located at 101 S. Monument Avenue on the Riverfront in downtown Hamilton, Ohio.

Building Community Excellence through the Arts and Culture