By Rita Christopher, Courier Senior Correspondent
No one
would deny that Dan Dahlstrom knows paint. Longtime Essex residents
will remember the family’s store, Carl Dahlstrom & Sons Paint and
Wallpaper. Dan, a l972 graduate of Valley Regional High School, worked
there for 25 years until the store closed in l999.
For the last five years, Dan has
been a security officer at Chester Village West, but paint is still
very much a part of his life. As an artist, Dan, who lives in Chester,
is having the first one-man show of his paintings at the Hidden Gallery
in Old Lyme, opening on Saturday, Oct. 3.
“I never would have thought five years ago that anything like this would ever happen,” Dan says.
Painting started, Dan says, as
something to do during off moments at his job. He started sketching
residents in pencil. It fascinated him, much to his own amazement. His
mother and brother had painted, but Dan never thought he had much
artistic talent.
From pencil sketches, Dan moved
through watercolor and acrylic; he now paints in oil. He discovered
Chester Village West residents had a scholarship foundation to give
grants to employees and the children of employees. He applied, received
a stipend, and, for the last three years, has studied at the Lyme
Academy of Art.
“I knew it was one of the best and it is accredited, which is one of the requirements of the scholarship program,” Dan says.
“We are very proud of what Dan has accomplished,” says Art Bradley, head of the residents’ scholarship foundation. “His
artistic
ability has increased eight- or 10-fold over the last three years.
We’re very pleased that he is having his first, full-fledged showing as
an artist.”
Chester Village West is providing a bus so residents can attend Dan’s opening.
At first, attending art school was intimidating to Dan.
“I was a wallflower at those first classes, but for the last few years I’ve been quite comfortable,” he says.
He says the benefits are not simply
in the instruction he has received, but also in the camaraderie he has
found with other artists.
“Being around that atmosphere really helps,” he says.
Good business sense also helped Dan
as he began to look to selling his paintings. He owns a timeshare at
Water’s Edge in Westbrook and, when he showed some landscapes featuring
the resort to Tina Dattilo, the resort’s general manager, she responded
not only by buying a small
painting, but also by allowing Dan to
exhibit his work at the resort. He is the only artist with permission
to show at Water’s Edge.
“Some guests who come to weddings here have even bought his pictures as wedding presents,” Dattilo notes.
Dan recalls he sold a painting of
the gazebo on the property to a man who had proposed in the building.
Subsequently, Water’s Edge commissioned him to do a paining of the
gazebo, which now hangs in front of the lounge. He is also doing a
commissioned work for the River House at Goodspeed Station in Haddam.
Dan says that Kariann Price, who
owns a gallery in Deep River, was the first to exhibit his pictures and
he has already been in group shows at the Hidden
Gallery in Old Lyme. This summer he approached Hidden
Gallery owner Cindy Fetcher about having his own show.
“I’ve invited a number of people and
hopefully some of them will show up,” he says. He says the show will
feature his landscapes, but will also include a nude—“not that risqué,”
he adds.
Dan thinks in the last four years he
has done more painting than people who have painted intermittently for
much longer. Though he works full-time, he paints every day.
“I’m driven to keep painting,” he explains. “I just do it day after day.”
He would like to branch out,
exhibiting his work at galleries in Newport, where he has already done
some pictures, and, someday, he says, even New York City.
Locally, he says, many people still
recognize him from the paint shop. He says the years of mixing paints
for customers has made him more sensitive to how the same color can
look dissimilar in different lighting and against different
backgrounds. His work today, he points out, is still all about the
paint.
“It’s just that I put it on canvas, not on walls,” he says.