CAC Founder Falconer To Be Guest Of Honor At 40^th Anniversary Party

 by Jennifer Sexton 

            CHATHAM--- On Oct. 17, the Creative Arts Center (CAC) will celebrate its 40^th anniversary with its 1969 Exhibition and party at the center. CAC founder Marguerite “Peg” Falconer, who recently celebrated her 90^th birthday at the CAC, will be the party’s guest of honor.

            Party fare will be reminiscent of 1969. A signature 1969 cocktail designed for the occasion will be served, and 1960s attire is permitted and even encouraged, as is dancing to ‘60s music. A costume station will enable partygoers to have photos taken as hippies no matter the style of the clothing they arrived in. As the party winds down, Falconer will draw the winning raffle ticket for a 32-inch LCD HD television.

            Falconer is excited to be part of the 40^th anniversary event. 

CAC founder Peg Falconer.  JENNIFER SEXTON PHOTO

           “It’s just wonderful,” Falconer says. “I am very blessed to be able to be here, to have celebrated my 90^th birthday here surrounded by all of my artwork, and now to celebrate the CAC’s 40^th birthday.”

            Falconer recalls being interested in drawing and painting from an early age, and says that Monet was always her idol. Her mother was an amateur painter, and Falconer remembers closing off the doors of their Quincy kitchen so that she could model for her mother.

            “I only wish that my mother could have lived to see me open my gallery,” she says. “She would have been very pleased.”

            Falconer attended the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston, but did not finish. She felt that it was her duty instead to contribute during the years of World War II by earning a living. She developed her skills by studying with recognized artists including Roger Curtis, Robert Douglas Hunter, Emile Gruppe and Ed Harrigan, and began teaching, with the encouragement of her instructors. She taught classes, workshops, gave demonstrations and juried shows throughout Southeastern New England before finally moving to Chatham in 1968.
            “It was getting worrying, traveling around so much, and I always loved Chatham,” she says. “I had six girl cousins who lived here as I was growing up, and two of them, Alice and Ethyl, were close to me in age. We would correspond during the winters and I would visit them in Chatham in the summers. I have such memories of the wind blowing through my Aunt Winnie’s line of clothes during those summer visits. I’ve always been very fond of Chatham.”

            After her eldest cousin opened a gift shop on Crowell Road, Falconer had the idea of opening a gallery of her own. Renting a storefront on Main Street, she converted it into a gallery and studio with watercolorist Dan McElwain. Here Falconer ran the gallery while painting in the front window, receiving a lot of attention and establishing her reputation for creating some of the most sought after oil paintings of Cape Cod.

            “We did very well. We sold out,” she says. “I think it was due in part to the wonderful publicity that happened when one of my paintings was stolen from out front as I painted in the window.”

            During the winter months she taught classes and workshops and judged and demonstrated for local art organizations. The gallery remained on Main Street, first in one location and then in another, for over 30 years under Falconer’s ownership. It remains there today as the Wynne/Falconer Gallery.

            In 1969, Falconer and ten other artists, including longtime resident Marie Griffin, who passed away earlier this year, founded the Creative Arts Center. It was their answer to the problem of Chatham seeming to be an art-starved town, Falconer says.

            “There was only one year-round gallery on Main Street in Chatham at that time, and only one other that closed during the winter. I got together with Dan McElwain, oil painter Jan Matsik and Joe Leahy, a watercolorist, and we held our first meeting at my gallery on Main Street. We began by meeting with the town fathers about having a festival in Kate Gould Park. We never did get that park. We had it in Chase Park, but it wasn’t easy.”

            The CAC festival began as an event exclusively for painters, but gradually it was opened to potters, jewelers and other artists and craftspeople. The change allowed a wider range of pricing, enabling big-spending art collectors to enjoy the festival alongside families with children who might make smaller purchases.

            “I’m so pleased and proud of how the CAC and the festival have developed and changed in 40 years. This celebration is so worth lasting for 90 years,” laughs Falconer.

            Falconer's works can be found in private and public collections throughout the United States, Canada and abroad. Her paintings are a part of the permanent collections and archives of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The American Museum of Art at the Smithsonian Institute, the Cape Cod Museum of Fine Arts, and the famed Salmagundi Club.

            She still paints, using her second bedroom as a studio and filling her storage space with frames and canvasses.

            “I’m working on a new style of painting,” she says, mischievously. “I’m not announcing it just yet.”

            The CAC’s 40^th Anniversary 1969 Exhibition will bring back memories of the first moon landing, Woodstock, Sesame Street, the Amazing Mets and more through posters, headlines, artifacts, photos and music. Iconic photographs by former Life photographer Rowland Scherman will be featured along with Rosita, an original Sesame Street muppet, provided by creator Ed Christie.

            The 1969 Exhibition is open free to the public from Wednesday, Oct. 14 through Friday, Oct. 16, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will be part of the anniversary celebration Saturday, Oct. 17 from 5 to 7 p.m. Tickets to the party, available at the door, will be appropriately priced at $19.69. To reserve a ticket, call the CAC at 508-945-3583.

10/8/09