Cathleen Englesen, “Tuckers Island”; Carol Nussbaum, “Blue Fungus Mandala,” 2022, inkjet on archival pigment fine art paper, 25x25"; and Swing Graphics, map.
Summertime, and many head down the shore to the barrier island and summer colony known anachronistically as LBI. Surfing, sailing, cycling, or swimming may be on the agenda, along with snorkeling and summer concerts, but on the weekend of Aug. 12 and 13, the LBI Artist Open Studio Tour will add to Long Beach Island’s cultural amenities.
Now in its 17th year, the free, self-guided tour (maps, brochure and artist links at lbiartists.com) takes visitors inside the homes, studios, and galleries of the many professional artists working on the island. Artists will demonstrate their processes, display artwork and offer it for sale.
Cathleen Engelsen has had her studio on the tour since its inception. Her painting of majestic sailboats is featured on this year’s event poster. The Ocean County native, who studied at the Samuel Fleischer Art Memorial in Philadelphia and at the Philadelphia College of Art, is known for preserving historic New Jersey scenes from the northern part of the state to its coastal shores, and out to the western tip.
Cathleen Engelsen, “Tuckers Island”
Reached just as she was finishing a late lunch – Engelsen spends Monday mornings at the Surf City Farmers Market, displaying and selling her paintings – she spoke about how she lives and works in the cottage she grew up in. “I have a natural environment with trees, and we used to be on a house tour,” she says. Engelsen describes the property as an old seashore house, built in the 1930s. Its cedar shingles are painted a bright blue with white trim. “My father was a merchant marine captain and my mother loved blue.” Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of blue in Engelsen’s paintings.
In the summer, Engelsen works in her garage, but unless it is raining she will set up shop in her garden, painting a local scene. Her paintings will be displayed on the cedar tree trunks. During the lockdown portion of the pandemic, Engelsen realized her trees were socially distanced and she came up with the idea of exhibiting artwork there. She titled it “Distancing in the Trees.” “People loved it; they wanted to get out,” she recollects. Situated on 19th and Sunset Avenue, “Distancing in the Trees” received a warm reception from joggers and passersby.
Cathleen Engelsen at her home studio in Surf City during the 2016 studio tour. Photo courtesy of LBI Artist Open Studio Tour.
Her historical paintings are rendered in a contemporary way, with a bright and lively palette. The interest in history began in the 1970s, when McDonald’s commissioned Engelsen to do a series of paintings of local landmarks for their stores in Toms River, Manahawkin, Lakehurst, Burlington, Howell, and Ocean Township. In the 1980s, having seen the work for McDonald’s, PSE&G commissioned 40 paintings for its Newark, Perth Amboy and Burlington offices.
To research what certain areas looked like long ago, Engelsen would visit locals with photo and postcard collections, and area libraries and historical societies, as well as viewing tax maps. “It takes time,” she says. “I read a lot and try to imagine what it was like to live there. I just sort of fall in love with the scene and imagine people with a positive outlook and what they wore. I painted the Hindenburg catching fire, but it shows the people who survived. I like to portray stories in positive way. I am patriotic so I usually include the American flag. The flag is always flying.”
She likes to paint the boardwalk with people attired in clothing of an earlier era, dunes with moon glow, and many seashore scenes. “I work from photos and a lot from memory. I don’t paint plein air, I paint at home.”
Engelsen says she is having fun. “I have learned a lot about New Jersey. I was raised here on the island, I’m the only native on the tour. I love history. Art took me throughout the state.”
Linda Ramsay, “Boy with Orange Bathing Suit,” 2022. Oil on canvas, 16x40.”
Artist Carol Nussbaum has been organizing the tour for the past two years. Having joined the tour eight summers ago, she also served on the board of the LBI Foundation of the Arts & Sciences, where she was a curator on the arts and exhibitions committee. “I was looking for a community related project,” she says. When the tour’s founders learned of her interest, they happily allowed her to take the reins. “I felt like I’d won the lottery.”
Last year’s tour saw 200 visitors, she says, and this year’s tour includes 30 artists. “The more the merrier,” says Nussbaum, who credits the tour and the foundation for bringing artists together for camaraderie. “Artists are not on their own island, we all support and encourage each other. We talk about where are you showing, how do you promote your work, and how might your secret way of doing something help me.”
Nussbaum doesn’t have a dedicated studio space, and along with other artists in a similar situation she has set up at area galleries for the tour: Wildflowers Too Gallery, Firefly Gallery, Swell Colors Glass Studio & Gallery, and the LBI Foundation. This year she’ll be at the studio of Joan Gantz, an artist whose house is on pilings, forming a nice, shady, rain-proof studio underneath.
Having studied both art and photography at Skidmore, Nussbaum has worked as an advertising art director and designer in New York, as a children’s book illustrator, a mural painter, stationery designer, graphic artist, and magazine artist. “Now that my children are grown, I am returning to my roots but still testing my wings, experimenting with photography as fine art,” she says. She attends a weekly Zoom session with her digital art mentor and fellow artists to stay abreast of the latest technology.
Carol Nussbaum, “Flower Mandala,” 2022. Inkjet on archival pigment fine art paper, 20x20.”
Nussbaum weaves photographs of plastic toys and flowers into mandalas. Using Photoshop, she chooses a slice of a photo that has the depth, dimension and pattern she is seeking. “From that slice I repeat again and again in a circular design, like the Buddhist monks did with sand mandalas, creating patterns for meditation. Sometimes I hit a home run and I love the way patterns and colors come out and mix together, but sometimes I will spend hours and it doesn’t work. It’s trial and error.”
Nussbaum will offer tour goers a creativity zone. “I don’t like to throw anything away, so my ‘booboos’ – prints in which I may have been dissatisfied with, say, the calibration – will be available for cutting up and turning into collage.”
What sets the LBI Studio Tour apart from other studio tours, says Nussbaum, is that it is “inclusive, welcoming, relaxed, and fosters creativity in a beach community. And the caliber of the artists matches what you might see in New York or Philadelphia. I’ve been to the Gowanus Open Studios in Brooklyn – it’s a different vibe, and I’ll go every year -- but it’s urban. This is beach. What’s better than seeing art at the beach?”
Other artists include Sue Pohanka, who creates functional pottery in porcelain, using her painting and drawing skills to add images of whimsical creatures; Alice McEnernery Cook, who paints the coastal wetlands of United States en plein air; and stained-glass artist Mary Tantillo who has made everything from windows to mosaics, backsplashes, fused glass art, and home decor. For the full roster of artists, see the LBI Artists website.
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