Art Guild to feature 2 local artists this Sunday

Published 9:42 pm Thursday, August 9, 2018

This Sunday, the Selma Art Guild will host a double Artist of the Month Show from 2-4 p.m.

The featured artists, Cam Walker Guarino and Shirley Quarles Baird, have not had shows in a long time, according to the artists.

“I do abstract watercolors,” said Baird. “I grew up in Selma, and there were no art teachers here. I always loved to paint.”

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It was not until Baird went to college that Baird would begin to hone her craft. She had always worked with realism painting, but it was not until her college instructor introduced abstract expressionism to her that she found her true artistic passion.

“That is what I love to do,” she said. “I just drowned myself in it. It is more fun, and it is harder too. You have to think about it.”

Baird transferred to the University of Alabama where she was surrounded by abstract expressionism art.

Baird also did ceramic art as well.

A family and time in the Air Force took Baird away from painting until she returned to it after settling down in Montgomery.

While in Montgomery, Baird found watercolors as her new preferred medium to use.

Guarino teaches art at Morgan Academy where she also went to school.

Guarino uses oil painting for her art.

“I tried oil painting in a class in college, and my teacher said that I had found my medium, and I’ve stuck with it,” she said. “I’ve worked with all the different mediums, and I’ve taught art. I just like the way oil moves, and how we can control it, layer it and the marks you can make with it.”

Guarino said her first-grade teacher saw the talent she possessed.

“I remember in the first-grade, the teacher told my mother that I needed art classes, but there wasn’t any around here,” Guarino said.

She attended Montevallo where she was able to learn more about her talent.

“I’ve been teaching for the most part,” she said. “I have taught for 31 years, and I worked for a while as a graphic artist.”

The Selma Art Guild is located at 508 Selma Ave.