An accidental painter shows off her artwork

An artist who has lived in the Five Towns since 1946, Charlotte Strongwater has her own exhibit called “The Accidental Artist” at Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library until mid September, featuring paintings of wildlife, landscapes and people.

The exhibit’s title has dual meanings for Strongwater. On a flight to the Philippines for her husband’s glove business 20 years ago, Strongwater grew restless and pulled out the art supplies she was planning to give to an artist-in-need on the island nation. She hadn’t painted in years, but it relaxed her and she loved it. “The other reason is because with watercolors you often have accidents and water will fall on a certain area and create something very beautiful,” said Strongwater, who lives in Hewlett Neck. Before that she lived in Woodmere.

In this exhibit with 43 paintings, she used mixed media, such as watercolor, pastel and collages, although she prefers watercolor, and Strongwater said she paints whatever she likes. “I paint animals I’ve seen when we traveled, what I see in my backyard,” she said. “I paint people I’ve seen, I try to remember what they look like if they had interesting faces.” Most of her art is representational, although she has many styles.

A blue-footed booby that she saw in the Galapagos, a Chinese man who she said had a mean face, a cityscape, ice skaters, and a few birds she came across in her backyard are part of the exhibit. Some of her paintings were spurred by accidents. “My painting ‘Look’ I did when I was messing around with different techniques, using salt which draws the color out, and it gave the illusion of stars, and then I cut out some things; I was just experimenting and then I liked the result,” she said.

Traveling has given Strongwater ideas about what to paint. “I have traveled a lot in my life and a lot of the stuff in the exhibit is from these travels,” she said, such as her paintings of elephants and zebras in Africa.

Strongwater has been interested in art since she was a child. She went to Lawrence High School and Syracuse University’s art school, working as an assistant art director in charge of advertising for a department store and then as a preschool teacher, before she had children. She didn’t resume creating art again until her children were older.

She has exhibited in the library five times; the first time was about 30 years ago with sculpture, then she did three group shows with the Hewlett Neck Art Guild, and this was her first one-woman show. She also showed her work at Guild Hall in East Hampton and at an art gallery in New Jersey that has since closed.

All of the paintings in this exhibit, which goes through Sept. 23, are for sale, and Strongwater has sold two already. Her best year was 2004, when she sold 55 paintings.

“I think her work is beautiful, especially the textures in some of the pieces,” said Rick Fox, the exhibit coordinator and music specialist at Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library. Strongwater uses salt, saran wrap and wax paper in some of her paintings to create textured backgrounds.

She paints almost everyday in the winter, and although she doesn’t paint as much in the summer, Strongwater takes photographs with her camera so that she’ll have something to paint later on. “I just love to paint; it’s so enjoyable and fun,” she said.