Hewitt artist exhibits her artworks - and her love of cats - at Ringwood Public Library
Ringwood Her drawings are featured in more than 50 galleries across the United States and are in the collections of Chase Manhattan, NA, Rutgers University and the Bergen Museum. Now through Dec. 31, the colored pencil drawings of Paula Madawick, a resident of Hewitt, will be exhibited at the Ringwood Public Library. Madawick holds the prestigious C.P.S.A. designation from the Colored Pencil Society of America. She was one of the first 11 colored pencil artists in the country to receive the designation. The pictures in the Ringwood Library exhibit are from the artist’s personal collection of her cat drawings. She is a recognized landscape artist and rarely has an opportunity to exhibit her favorite colored pencil drawings of cats. The colored drawings range from an intimate, 7 1/2 x 10 inches to mega size, 3 X 5 1/2 feet. On exhibit are three distinctly different cats, Monty, Lola and Sassy. They lived with Paula and her husband over the years. Today two cats, Sassy and Walter, and a dog Annie keep her company in her studio while she works on landscapes. They are non-critical company and loving companions so it is inevitable that she would turn to them as occasional models. Paula drew her first cat picture in 1989 and her first commissioned cat picture in 1997. Madawick was born in Texas and studied at the School of Visual Arts, Cooper Union and State University of New York where she received her bachelors degree. She has received numerous art awards, taught in colleges and privately, and currently teaches Drawing in Color and ArtStart at the Rockland Center for the Arts and The Art School at Old Church. Madawick has contributed to six colored pencil books, been reviewed by The New York Times and other newspapers and is the former executive director of the Edward Hopper House Art Center and former gallery director of the Zakin Gallery. She is a weekly “cat person” volunteer at the West Milford Animal Shelter Society and adopted Walter, a five-year-old Siamese cat, and Annie, a beautiful 65-pound black dog from the shelter. Sassy cat was feral and continues to live up to her name. If you go The artwork of Paula Madawick Ringwood Public Library 30 Cannici Drive, Ringwood Now through Dec. 31, 2010 973-962-6256