NEW IBERIA, La. --- Shadows-on-the-Teche Plein Air invites you to attend a plein air painting demonstration led by Mark Boedges. The demonstration will take place on Thurs., March 17 at 2 p.m. near the Shadows. The exact location will be announced at a later date. The demo will take place outside, weather permitting, and is free to attend.

Boedges paints many kinds of subjects, but the landscape is his first and greatest love. Like many artists, he strives to achieve a painterly realism in his work. Everywhere he looks he sees the grittiness, cragginess, and layered, fine-grained texture of the natural world. It is this essential complexity he tries to capture in paint.

Experience has taught him that the best way to do this is to let the paint do what it does best: look like paint. Drips, splatters, wipes, palette knife, various brushes, and plenty of other abstract paint applications are crucial. Exactly how painterly to make it is a question for each painting and is dictated by the subject at hand and what about the painting Mr. Boedges most wishes to capture. And since he starts most of his paintings outdoors, it’s worth noting that weather shapes a great part of what he does and how he does it.

Among the top honors Boedges has received are the Grand Prize for Landscape and a spot on the cover of International Artist magazine, as well as more recently the Joseph Hartley Memorial Award at the prestigious Salmagundi Club in New York City, Best in Show at the American Impressionist Society's National Exhibition, and Best in Show at the Scottsdale Salon of Fine Art.

The Shadows-on-the-Teche Plein Air Painting Competition will take place March 12-18, 2022. Visitors are invited to travel around the seven-parish area and watch artists paint en plein air.

Other festivities planned during competition week can be found below. Additional details about these events can be found on the Shadows’ website.

The Shadows-on-the-Teche Plein Air competition debuted in 2015, introducing the community to painting en plein air. The tradition of “painting outside” is one explored by William Weeks Hall, the last private owner of the Shadows, who advertised for and taught painting classes in the gardens in the 1940s.

In the seven-year history of the competition, over 180 artists from 28 states, Canada, and the Philippines have applied to participate. Almost 100 of these artists have traveled to New Iberia for the opportunity to spend a week painting Acadiana, helping to preserve our unique landscape and historic, urban, and rural viewscapes. Painting sales, the driving force behind the event and a clearer measure of success, increase each year with a grand total of $140,000 over the history of the event, providing support to the artists and the Shadows.

The Shadows-on-the-Teche, National Trust for Historic Preservation site, opened to the public in 1961 with the mission to preserve the buildings, landscape, collections, and historical integrity of the site; to research and interpret through education programs a 19th century southern Louisiana plantation economy and community and their evolution; and to encourage an appreciation of and interest in historic preservation. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns and operates the Shadows-on-the-Teche, is a private, non-profit organization. The Shadows does not receive funding from federal, state, parish, or city government. The site supports itself through admissions, special programs and events, and donations to the Friends of the Shadows. For more information, visit ShadowsOnTheTeche.org.

For more information please contact Jayd Buteaux at (337) 369-6446 or JButeaux@savingplaces.org. Any funds raised from this event will be used for the continued preservation and maintenance of the Shadows.

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For more information on parish events and tourism assets, call the bureau at 337-365-1540 or visit IberiaTravel.com