Caitlin Phelan
With arms wide open, Dublin welcomes thousands of visitors to The Presidents Cup, and some will go home with a newly-created piece of art that depicts the community’s infancy and history.
The enduring painting, titled Dublin Through the Eyes of John Shields, is a new commemorative gift that officials will use for ceremonial, economic development and recognition purposes. During The Presidents Cup, the canvas reproductions, or prints, will be given to visiting officials and tournament participants, says Sandra Puskarcik, the City’s community relations director, who was instrumental in the painting’s creation.
Bev Goldie, a City resident and artist, who is active in the community’s arts programs, was commissioned to create the oil painting, as well as 50 reproduced on stretch canvas and 100 matted photographs, which the City will present as its official commemorative pieces. McAlister Photoworks produced them.
Dublin officials have received commemorative art from foreign cities, including Ireland. “It is very meaningful to receive something on canvas,” Goldie says.
Her work illustrates several aspects of how the wilderness might have appeared along the Scioto River Valley in the early 1800s when John Sells, a farmer, and his father and brothers acquired 800 acres.
Shields, a surveyor from Franklinton, platted 200 lots on Sells’ 400 acres in 1808 for a community (first known as Sells Settlement or Sells Town) he was allowed to name. Shields wrote, “If I have the honor conferred on me to name your village, with the brightness of the morning land, the beaming of the sun on the hills and dales surrounding this beautiful valley, it would give me great pleasure to name your new town after my birthplace, Dublin, Ireland.”
Goldie’s 30-by-24-inch oil painting depicts Sells on horseback on a path along the Scioto and an open field rising from the opposite bank with a barn and grazing animals to depict a settlement. “There’s enough going on that you want to look elsewhere in the picture,” she says. It’s as surveyor Shields might have seen it in keeping with the theme Puskarcik suggested.
Puskarcik says the idea stemmed from her work creating Dublin’s Journey, the community’s history book. “I loved listening to the stories told by Dublin’s historians and I made a personal and professional pledge to bring our rich history to life whenever possible,” she says.
She sought to make a painting “that is interesting and attractive enough to make a nice gift,” a project that, she says, was challenging because her actual painting time was compressed into a few weeks this past summer.
“It was no easy task coming up with a concept without taking some artistic license,” she says, allowing that, “We really took (Shields’) words at face value.”
During formative stages, Goldie met with a committee to discuss aspects of her proposed drawing. Puskarcik; Fred Hahn, director of parks and open space; Anne Clarke, City Council clerk; and Sara Ott, special projects manager, were involved, each offering ideas or information.
Goldie turned to Herb Jones, considered the ultimate authority on the City’s history. He advised her about such things as the gun the horseman is carrying, a pouch for its ammunition, the rider’s over-the-knee boots and style of hat, and even the color of the horse – black. Goldie notes that painting the horse dark enough wasn’t that easy. Neither was finding a photo of a black horse to use as a model.
The artist transformed her basement recreation room into a studio while she completed the painting. She and her husband, Bob, live, coincidentally, in an enclave that borders open and tournament parking spaces south of Muirfield Village Golf Club, the venue for The Presidents Cup.
Goldie tells how she scouted the riverbank, photographing views that might reflect what Shields (and Sells) saw. A pool table was covered with the pictures and basic sketches developed as the work progressed.
She started the painting with an Indian Red under-color that she used to tie the picture together by shading or adding slight background color in various places.
As the work evolved, the advisers were consulted regarding various aspects. For example, rocks from the river could have been used to border the path, which history indicates was an avenue for Native Americans. In interpreting the painting’s subtleties, the artist notes, some tree branches point to the open field to direct the viewer’s focus. A lower corner was filled in with more than just dirt so it wouldn’t be a void. Sunlight is apparent, but not overwhelming, on the open pasture above the river.
The painting is not Goldie’s first to help promote Dublin or a community activity. She majored in art at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, but had not pursued it while she worked in interior design. The family – the couple has two adult sons – lived in Dublin and then Milwaukee for several years before moving back.
Upon returning, she began concentrating on art and eventually began using space and taking lessons at the Cultural Arts Center in downtown Columbus. She became involved in the Dublin Women’s Club and in the Dublin Area Art League. She is a past president of both groups and is still active in both. She and the league will bring the annual arts show back to Historic Dublin next year after a one-year hiatus.
In conjunction with the Historic Dublin Business Association, she created a line drawing of local businesses’ doors for T-shirts for the “Dub Crawl” and converted those to a painted poster – Doorways of Historic Dublin. For three years, she helped find sponsors for a community calendar, using winning art selected in an annual contest.
For the 2010 bicentennial, Goldie created a 6-by-4-foot mural depicting Dublin places and events since 1810. This work is in the Dublin Municipal Building and was reproduced as a poster, one of which she displays in the foyer of her home.
The newest historic painting “will be a gift to the City” and displayed “in a public venue,” Puskarcik says, adding “Dublin’s landscape and streetscape will soon be experiencing significant enhancement in the Bridge Street District. I am hopeful that this series might continue with a painting of Dublin today and yet another several decades from now. I believe that the pioneer spirit of John Sells lives on in our community.”
Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
