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2026-05-19
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Amherst Artist Corner - June 2026
There’s more than banking happening at our Amherst branch.
Our walls are currently filled with pieces from local artists Nancy Birmingham and Rochelle Shicoff—turning the space into a rotating gallery you can actually walk through. Get to know them, then stop in and see their work in person.
Nancy Birmingham grew up in beautiful Marblehead, MA. where she graduated high School in 1971. She graduated with a Fine Arts degree (BFA) in Painting and Printmaking from Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada in 1975. The University of Massachusetts brought Nancy to the valley in 1977, where she began a 35-year career working for the State of Massachusetts as a severe special needs teacher and consultant. Following her retirement she also did some hospice caregiving.
Painting in watercolor and acrylics is something Nancy has always had passion for. She especially loves painting landscapes en plein air. Nancy also enjoys teaching watercolor and acrylic painting classes.
She has exhibited in many venues in the Valley with the Quabbin Art Association, the Marblehead Festival of Arts and the Marblehead Art Association. Nancy's work is in local, national and international collections and has won many distinguished awards since 1975.
About Nancy's work:
Nancy’s work seeks to provoke a sense of quiet peace in the ordinary landscapes around us. Watercolor is her choice of medium for creative expression.
Her goal as a painter is to encourage the viewer to look for the beauty in front of them and to reflect on the dynamic calm in common scenes. She hopes to invoke closer examination of ordinary landscapes and appreciate them with your heart.
Her goal as a painter is to encourage the viewer to look for the beauty in front of them and to reflect on the dynamic calm in common scenes. She hopes to invoke closer examination of ordinary landscapes and appreciate them with your heart.
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Rochelle Shicoff has been involved in making art, looking at it, thinking and talking about it since receiving an easel at 6 years of age. Her mixed media works and paintings are exhibited nationally and internationally. Shicoff was the recipient of the Rome Prize Fellowship in Painting, and her various other selected awards include community grants, a Fulbright nomination, New York and MA Foundation grants, Smart Growth America, Arts and Transportation Rapid Response.She co-authored The Mural Book: A Practical Guide for Educators published by Crystal Production which was specifically written for K-12 teachers. She is a member of Gallery A3 in Amherst and Quabbin Art Association, Belchertown, MA.
Rochelle Shicoff’s work is involved with the visual expression of aspects of the human condition. In the exhibited works, from the series Everything Is So Still, the viewer, through the photographs, is invited into an intimate world associated with their actual or imaginary travels. The animals serve to show human instincts and act as active forces. Encaustic (wax) is applied and layered with oil paint and pastel on top of the encaustic. This process and experience of applying the encaustic is very labor intensive since it is applied with a small brush. Shicoff finds this action extremely meditative. The encaustic/wax on each layer creates hills and valleys which Shicoff finds very beautiful.
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