When I was in high school my mother found a newspaper article about The Ingbretson Studio which was located in a nearby town. I was ecstatic to hear about it because of their emphasis on academic training following the tradition of William Paxton and R.H. Ives Gammell. It seemed just perfect for me.

The “Boston School” way of painting seeks to combine the truth of impressionist color with good draughtsmanship, sound composition and skillful paint handling. Its leading exponents included Edmund Tarbell, Frank Benson, William Paxton, Joseph Decamp, Philip Hale and Leslie Thompsom. R.H. Ives Gammell (with whom Ingbretson studied) was a turn-of-the-century Boston Museum School pupil of the first three men and later consulted extensively with Paxton.

I remember when we visited the studio for the first time. The building was located in an industrial area, so initially I felt like we were at the wrong place or trespassing on private property. The building seemed exceeding quite, and I worried that no one was around to give us a tour. I vaguely remember the various rooms set up with casts and still lives and the scent of plasticine, turpentine and dust all melding together in the air.

Once I started my training, I worked with Meg Mercier, an incredibly supportive artist and mentor. She set up an easel for me near a plaster cast of Athena. The process was a slow one. I must have worked on the same drawing for hours each day and for months on end. I first outlined the entire form lightly, then shadows were added, and finally each facet of the drawing was rendered with the utmost precision.

It has been so many years since my days at the Ingbretson studio that I almost forgot about the experience entirely, yet aspects do creep back into my work today. When I work on my hand sketches, I try to model the surface in the same slow and careful way hoping to capture a subtle beauty. At times, I can almost picture the way the light fell on the surface of the cast and the way the shadows turned and blended with the body tone.

Here is a link to The Ingbretson Studio. I would be curious to visit it one day to see how it has changed.