Samantha McNally and Fiona Hughes have a lot in common. Both are artists, both have an appreciation of history and most of all, they both love Benicia.
They have another link between them: They have teamed up in their book “Benicia’s Changing Tides.”
McNally, a watercolor artist who lives in Pleasant Hill, has been a member of the Benicia Plein Air Gallery for years and over that time, has developed an affection for the town. “Everybody loves Benicia,” she says. She regularly paints landscapes and outdoor scenes throughout the area.
Hughes is an artist, a writer and poet. In May, she came up with the idea to write a book about Benicia and reached out to McNally for help.
“I said, ‘Hey, we should use your images and I’ll write the prose, or verse as it usually ends up with any of my works, and we’ll write a little book about it,”’ says Hughes.
The book features 17 of McNally’s watercolor paintings, each of a different scene, landmark or building in Benicia. Her paintings radiate the feeling of calm, often with cool tones and splashes of orange, just the feeling of the quaint town by the Carquinez Strait.
Her painting style is not something that McNally ever thought about, she says. “When you start out painting, you don’t realize you even have a style,” says McNally. So focused on improving and learning the correct techniques, it wasn’t until others started recognizing her work as her own that she realized she does in fact have a signature look. “Benicia’s Changing Tides” not only showcases her style, but also her love for Benicia.
For McNally and Hughes, two artists who don’t live in Benicia, they sure love it a whole lot.
“I love the fact that it’s a hard-working town that has so many wonderful characters and just a lot of personality, and that shows in the buildings, the history, the characters that we even have today heading on down the street,” Hughes says with a laugh. “There are so many interesting and neat things about it.”
McNally says she loves the history of Benicia. For her, an East Coast native, seeing the history of a town makes her feel more connected to it. Hughes was able to incorporate tidbits of Benicia’s history into the book, information that she found many people didn’t know, like that the Camel Barn used to house actual camels.
Although the book features poems and paintings of many well-known landmarks throughout Benicia, it is not all-encompassing. “It’s basically our favorite places and haunts and things that we find especially interesting and heartwarming about the history of Benicia and some of its characters,” says Hughes.
“Benicia’s Changing Tides” is available for purchase on amazon.com and McNally also hopes to have several copies at the Bencia Plein Air Gallery throughout the month of September, coinciding with her gallery show, which includes pieces from the book.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.timesheraldonline.com ’
