Artist Lauri Bruce is hoping her “Pax River, More Than Just Airplanes” exhibit at the Patuxent River Naval Air Museum can provide a glimpse into an area that relatively few people have ever seen.
The exhibit, which consists of nine oil landscape paintings, were all painted within the confines of Naval Air Station Patuxent River in St. Mary’s County.
“I thought how much more interesting would it be if I could show everybody the beauty of the base because there are a lot of places people just don’t see,” said the Tall Timbers resident. “They see the barbed wire and all they think of is airplanes. Even the people who work on base a lot of them don’t realize there’s all these really hidden gems.”
The exhibit runs through Sunday, Aug. 1.
“I saw her work on social media and felt that she would be a wonderful fit in the museum, with her and her husband’s [military] connections to the museum, as well as her beautiful landscapes of base scenery,” Amy Davis, the museum’s executive director, said.
Bruce found plenty of places to paint while accompanying her husband on hunting trips on the base.
“I’d find all these cool little places so I just started going back and revisiting them,” said Bruce, who grew up a Navy brat and lived in Virginia Beach, Florida and Iceland before moving to Southern Maryland in 1984. “There are the beaches, and coves, creeks and streams and these hidden trails. I just wanted to show that there’s another side to this base because it’s this massive piece of property and so many people don’t have access to. I just wanted to bring a little of that beauty into the world. It’s not just all airplanes.”
Bruce said she tries to convey the emotions she felt while painting through her art.
“We’re such a digital picture age now but when a painting is hanging on your wall every time you walk past it you’re caught by that moment of time,” she said. “Every time I look at one of my paintings I remember the weather, the sounds, I remember the smells or anybody who came up to talk to me. There’s a very visceral action for me to my paintings. What I want is for somebody to stop for a moment and be part of my journey, my experience.”
Bruce said she’s constantly looking for the perfect places and images to paint.
“I’ve driven off the road so many times saying, ‘Oh look at those clouds,’” she said with a laugh. Other times she’s reminded she’s still on a naval base. “I’ve been chased out of places because they were going to do some test landings. Then I’ll go to some places that’ll say, ‘open range,’ so maybe I don’t want to go there.”
Bruce, who painted the series from January through May, said her art has helped her through some difficult times.
In 2015, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and spent six months going through chemotherapy.
“I went back into studio [after my treatments] and just started painting again,” she said. “It was therapy and I could be by myself and just focus. When you’re painting, you don’t [feel as if you] have cancer.”
She recurred in February 2000 when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and underwent more chemotherapy. And then along came the coronavirus.
“Yeah, it was a great year last year,’” Bruce said sarcastically.
Bruce, who said she still has some cancer but is “doing really well,” said her painting is therapeutic.
“It was one of those things where if I don’t have long to live, how do I want to spend the rest of my life?” she said. “This [plein air painting] has been for me. I need to go out and be in nature and challenge myself. I have to be completely self-sufficient. This is a gift to myself and something to leave behind. Am I going to be rich? No, but I’m happy.”
She also said her medical issues have forced her to look at life in a different light.
“I see things differently and I take the time to observe stuff more,” said Bruce, who is a member of a plein air painting group and also teaches three online yoga classes a week. “It’s about seeing the big picture, so I’m not going to be painting the fuzz on the peach or the eyelashes on the frog.”
Bruce said she has loved painting from as far back as she can remember, but became frustrated with the medium while in high school.
“I remember being mad in art class because most people took it as just a throwaway class,” she said, “and I really wanted to learn something.”
She used to paint portraits, but gave that up several years back.
“It was always like painting with one hand tied behind your back,” she said, “because someone always has an opinion and an idea of what their child or dog or mother should look like.”
Regardless, Bruce admits she’s her own worst critic, though she admitted she feels different about this exhibit.
“I’m horribly critical,” she said. “I hate everything two weeks after I’ve done it. I’m like, ‘Oh my God throw it away, take it off the wall,’ although I was surprised when I looked at these. I thought, ‘They look pretty good hanging up there.’”
The exhibit also has a family connection. Steps away from Bruce’s exhibit is the Sikorski UH-3A Sea King helicopter that her husband, Capt. Scott Bruce, and father, retired Comm. Don Blish, piloted.
“This is pretty cool with Scott’s helicopter and my paintings,” she said. “Two representations of one place, and how many people get to do that?”
Davis said the museum is “always looking for artists” for both its newly-renovated art exhibit room as well as the main museum hall.
Twitter: @MichaelSoMdNews
