Artist Profile – written by Don Conkey

Carolyn Maloney

     As Carolyn Maloney taught a recent acrylic painting class and talked about the importance of caring for brushes, it might have been easy for her to reflect back on the fourth-grade art teacher who caused her to brush back some tears.
     “Basically, she said my work was not good,” Carolyn said.
      “And I went home and cried.”
       Thanks to her Mom, the tears dried quickly. “She told me not to pay attention to it,” Carolyn said. “And I believed my mother.”
       And, largely thanks to her Mom, Carolyn’s love of artistry grew.
“She encouraged me, supported me, and provided me a launching pad from which I could go in any direction I wanted to explore,” Carolyn said. “In her eyes, there was no ceiling.”
        And there indeed has been no ceiling in Carolyn’s life. Rather, it has been accomplishments, building ever higher to more accomplishments.
        Her professional career has been wide-ranging, including computer coding, custodian, bus driver, First Aid instructor, substitute teaching, nursing, and emergency medical technician.
        Throughout that professional path, there has been her art.
        “It’s always been important to me,” she said. “Even teaching, subbing, we would always find ways to put art in every lesson.”
        Growing up, “I was timid. I was not gregarious. I was not athletic. But art was a safe little world for me.”
        That world has immensely grown. She is a freelance artist who for over 40 years has sold her paintings and sketches throughout New England, as well as being commissioned for artwork across the country.
        She has done custom work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the McGraw-Hill publishing company; she for many years has exhibited locally, including at the Eastern States Exposition; and has provided hand-painted prizes for the Cornish Fair in New Hampshire.
        She has created murals for Mittineague and Memorial Elementary Schools in West Springfield; has donated her mural work at the West Springfield/Agawam Parish Cupboard; has donated mural work that has appeared both inside and outside Mittineague Congregational Church, including a 35-foot-long castle that acts as an entrance to the Children’s Center; and has organized and run numerous volunteer after-school art programs in West Springfield.
       Carolyn is a member of the Agawam Community Artists and Artisans Board of Directors, and co-chairs the group’s “Art with a Heart” series of workshops.
       She is especially proud of her most current project: illustrator for a children’s book, “How the Sky Turned Blue”, by author Addison Elina Dulaney. The book is on track to be published this year.
       Like many artists, Carolyn works in multiple mediums: they include acrylics, oils, calligraphy, and sketching.
       And like most artists, she has a favorite.
      “Acrylic,” she said.
      “I like acrylic because it’s fixable. You can really get detail into acrylics. And you can fix your mistakes almost immediately. I just … paint. And if I make a mistake, I paint over it. I always want to be free and loose – and acrylic has that for me.”
        Carolyn resides in West Springfield, with her husband Jim. And while she credits her Mom for nourishing her early love of art, she says Jim and daughters Katie and Sara have greatly contributed to her to flourishing in it.
        “I’ve been lucky to have Jim and the girls – who encouraged anything … and I mean ANYTHING –  I wanted to pursue.”
        Now, she encourages others, in ways such as that recent class in acrylic art.
        “I love the teaching part of it,” she said.  “I like people reaching potential that they didn’t know they had.”
        And if that fourth-grade teacher could have somehow seen her that day?
        “I’d just say, ‘Well, gee, I guess it wasn’t so bad after all.”