Artist Eileen Riello loses self in canvas

PITTSFIELD – More than a dozen birthday cards line the mantel in the home of Eileen Riello, an artist who has been doing her craft since the early 1980s.

She just had a milestone birthday, turning 80 years old. She looks at least 20 years younger with her twinkling blue eyes, nice smile and curly, short hair.

Her art focuses mainly on landscapes but lately she’s been delving into still-life scenes.

Decades ago, a friend, Sharon Carlo, kept asking Mrs. Riello to come to painting classes given by a well-known Lee artist, Gloria Malcolm Arnold.  Mrs. Riello said she finally agreed to go, just to appease her friend.

“I went so she wouldn’t keep bugging me,” she laughed.

That was more than 30 years ago, and she still meets regularly with other artists at Mrs. Arnold’s house. In the summer, they do oil painting on her porch.

Paints in good times and bad

Painting has kept Mrs. Riello going through good times and through bad.

Last June, she lost her husband of 52 years, Anthony Riello.  He had suffered from Alzheimer ’s disease for seven years prior to his death. Through it all, Mrs. Riello kept on painting, creating realistic scenes of every imaginable description.

“I lose myself in canvas,” she said. It takes her mind off of anything else happening in her life at the moment. She concentrates totally on the painting in front of her.

It might be a cluster of birch trees; a scene depicting clothes, including red socks, hanging on an outside line; or a perky black, white and yellow bird.

Besides the gallery of paintings displayed in her own home, she has given many of her works of art to her son, Anthony, and daughter, Victoria.

She’s also presented several paintings as wedding gifts and has given others to nieces both in and outside of Massachusetts.

“I give them to special people,” she said.

Art show fundraiser

A member of the Dalton Art Guild for the past 12 years, Mrs. Riello served as fundraiser for the organization’s annual art exhibition. For the past three years, it has been held at Millers Supply in Pittsfield.

“He’s [Steve Miller, owner] been great to us,” she said, allowing the artists to display their paintings for an entire month. This year it was held in June.

The money Mrs. Riello worked hard to raise went, for the most part, to prizes for winning entries.

She organized and carried out a mail campaign seeking donations via letters, as well as asking individuals to contribute.

This is the last year she plans to be the guild’s fundraiser, noting it’s time for someone else to take the reins.

Mrs. Riello has also been involved, for the past 10 years, in organizing revolving galleries at medical establishments in the area.

Artists from the Dalton Art Guild lend their paintings for three-month periods at Gynecological Services of the Berkshires in Adams,  Family Practice in Lee  and Family Practice Associates in Pittsfield.

At the end of that time, the artists come after their paintings and new ones are hung, unless they have been sold.

Always liked to draw

Mrs. Riello said she always liked to draw.  She even took art classes through the Pittsfield School Department in the 1970s.

She works in colored pencils, oils and watercolors. Oils are her favorite.

Mrs. Riello has always liked the ocean and some of her paintings depict it. She works from photographs, cards and even scenes she sees in magazines.

Sometimes her paintings are a combination of all of them. She puts in her own special touches as well, creating as she goes along.

There are Vermont scenes hanging on the walls in her home, including one that includes falling snow. It draws the observer into a chilly yet peaceful country landscape.

A turkey restaurant window

There is one painting that depicts a window she liked at the Hart’s Turkey Farm restaurant in Meredith, N.H., where all they serve is turkey.

There’s a cypress tree that grows out of water that also found its way onto Mrs. Riello’s canvas as well as a bicycle against a red barn, a southern gate scene and a very picturesque plant and flower-festooned door in Tuscany.

She’s painted a covered bridge as well as a sailboat on the ocean where one can almost hear the waves crashing against the rocks.

Praises art teacher and friend

Mrs. Riello has high praise for her long-time teacher, Mrs. Arnold.

“She’s really a lovely lady,” she said. “She’s a quiet, soft spoken Southern lady. She’s a sweetheart.”

Except for having been born and raised in Pittsfield, the same description could be said of Mrs. Riello.

She shows no signs of retiring from painting and for the art world, that is very good news.

Posted by Susan M. Wicker Guerrero on August 30, 2012. Filed under Arts and Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry