Romana Rainey

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY T he island's subtle blues, grays and browns are a perfect fit for Romana Rainey, a watercolorist whose main focus is on light and shapes rather than color.

"When I came to Nantucket, the light, the shapes, everything spoke to me about watercolor. I am lucky that on Nantucket the colors are so minimal. The water is blue, the sky is blue, and that is my palette. The essence of Nantucket is very conducive to what I try to accomplish," said Rainey, surrounded by muted tones in her apartment/ studio at the Academy Hill residence, a living situation that she calls ironic.

Born in the Ukraine, Rainey was encouraged in her art as a young child by her paternal grandmother who loved to draw and paint and by her father, an attorney by day and an artist in his free time.

"When I was 10 my mother wanted me to learn the piano," she recalled. "After two lessons I said I would rather be painting than playing the piano."

Rainey was educated in the United States and attended Washington Irving High School, a girl's academy in New York City with a strong arts program. She went on to earn her bachelor's and master's of fine arts degrees from Hunter College. Rainey married a Scotsman and they both taught in a Staten Island high school — her subject was art — and remained in their careers for 30 years before retiring to Nantucket 15 years ago. She painted occasionally while teaching, but not to the extent that she has applied her abilities since moving here.

"Steamship" by Romana Rainey "That was the plan," she said, explaining that she once worked in oils but prefers watercolors. Rainey has her own distinct way of approaching her paintings, most often of landscapes and still lifes.

"I never look to recreate a scene. If I love a scene for what it is, I'll take my camera with me," she said. "Nature is not painted perfectly. Nature does what it wants. It is up to you to make it picture perfect."

Rainey takes her sketchbook on walks as often as possible. The book, an art catalogue in itself, captures the darkest and lightest shades and middle grays she sees, although she does not hone in on light coming from a particular angle. Instead, Rainey looks at how light is distributed on her subject and instills basic elements of strong design. If the weather is poor, she relies on working from her backlog of sketches, returning to scenes if needed to refresh her memory.

"My sketchbook has everything in it, including a recipe for chicken soup," she said, laughing.

If Rainey is painting still lifes, she does set those up in her studio, which is comprised of a table by one of her tall windows. The table, when she is working, is covered with Plexiglas and holds her favorite big brushes that provide bold swashes. When she entertains, the glass is removed to make the table visitor-friendly. This environment, in a former school, is one Rainey cherishes and finds ironic.

"As a teacher you used to say 'I can't wait to get out of the classroom.' Now, I live in one and love it."

Though rendered less frequently than her landscapes, flowers and fruits, Rainey is adept at portraying people. She has large watercolor portraits of her mother and father, her late husband and her sons hanging on two walls around her bed, and enjoys painting portraits on commission. She wishes she could immortalize on paper every person living at Academy Hill.

"I would love to paint all the people who live in this building," she said, adding that she has already completed portraits of two residents. "They are such interesting and fabulous people."

What inspires Rainey is what she terms her 'stylistic realism,' where viewers are able to identify people or places in her paintings but not as they literally exist. Her aim is to capture what shadows and light transform to her eye.

"The light is of such fascination because it creates different shapes — almost abstract shapes."

The abstract image is drawing Rainey more now, as she looks toward what she would like to accomplish in the future.

"I think I would like to go a little more abstract. I like the intellectual challenge of it," she explained. "People think of abstract as something you just sit down and do, but I know better. You have to have good fundamentals to be convincing. I think I've done that. I've been slowly moving more toward the abstract — my interpretation of what I see."

Rainey confesses that she tosses a lot of what she begins into the trash.

"I throw out a lot of stuff. It cannot be altered in watercolor. I throw out a lot of work that I don't think is good enough. I would say I finish a painting once a month, and even then I am not always happy with what I do. Watercolor needs some control to achieve the outcome wanted. It is only once you have acquired that control that you can use it to your advantage."

Rainey exhibits at the Artists Association and will have pieces in upcoming holiday shows. In 2001 and 2007 she was given the C. Robert Perrin Watercolor Award for outstanding work. She said her "biggest claim to fame" this year was having her paintings accepted into the permanent collection of the Ukrainian Museum in New York City, an achievement she considers a great honor.

Being an artist means having ups and downs, either in judging one's own work or in how patrons judge pieces. For Rainey, that emotional rollercoaster and the critiques that accompany it are worth every moment.

"When I am successful in what I'm doing, I am euphoric. By the same token, I can go through spells when I just can't seem to do anything and I walk around in a depressed state," she said. "When I finish [a painting] and I know it's good, I am ecstatic. Nothing makes me as happy except my two sons who are everything to me. They are my worst critics, but I know when they like my painting." I