Painting the Town Green

Group hopes art show will secure Mather Meadows

Darien: About 15 children spent an idyllic afternoon yesterday mixing paints and dabbling small brushes onto palettes in an effort to capture Mather Meadows, one of Darien’s last large tracts of undeveloped land.

Young painters, ages 5 to 10, learned the history of “plein air” – or open air painting, then set out to create their own as part of the Campaign to Save Mather Meadows. Their paintings could be the last drawn of the undeveloped 9 acre property, if the Land Trust of Darien is unable to raise $750,000 in the next 17 days. The Trust has raised more than $3 million of the $3.8 million the Mather-McPherson family is asking for the property that was purchased by Deacon Joseph Mather in 1778.

Over the summer, about 30 professional artists set up exactly where the children painted yesterday to capture on canvas the meadows rolling topography, bordering scenic woods and river views. These paintings will be auctioned at a land trust fund-raising event at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Darien Community Center. The children’s paintings will also be on display.

Charlotte Schaffer, 9, painted the green of the meadow before working her way toward the top of the canvas, where she roughed in maple trees. Painting outdoors was more fun than she had imagined, Charlotte said. “All I know is that we are using paint and painting what we see,” said Charlotte, Lynne Brooks’ daughter. “You can’t do anything wrong.”

“I really like to paint the trees. They look very nice,” said Gregory Sellhausen, 8.

When asked about displaying her picture of a maple tree next to those by professional artists, Katie Rohn, 10, said she wasn’t worried. “It may look a little different from the other paintings, but that’s ok. I think they look better when they are different,” Katie said.