Kendra Bidwell Ferriera selected 2011-2012 Seasons' Pass Artist
For Kendra Bidwell Ferriera there is special meaning in being chosen, the Rhode Island Blood Center’s Seasons’ Pass Artist for 2011-2012.A cancer survivor and blood recipient, Kendra sees her participation in the Seasons’ Pass program as a way of supporting other cancer survivors within her own support group.
“A lot of my fellow patients, so many of them, had many many transfusions -- platelets and red cells. This is a good way for me to help support them,” Kendra says.
And perhaps her successful battle with cancer has helped in the development her craft. Her art has a sense of calmness, serenity, she says, and she works often in colored pencil, a tedious process, but one Kendra says allows her to draw.
“I love to draw,” she says. “I feel more comfortable putting the pencil on the paper than I do mixing paint…I love creating. I see things around me that I want to put into a painting or drawing...colored pencils permit me to combine the expressiveness of painting with the control of drawing.”
Her art, she believes, “opens up people’s views. You can show them things that they might not ordinarily see.” On her web site, she says: “A drawing or painting is a moment in time, a frozen piece of the thoughts and feelings of the artist who seeks to draw the viewer into the canvas. It stirs our emotions, creates a mood and reflects the spirit of the artist.”
Born in Glastonbury, Connecticut, she moved to Rhode Island with her family as a teen, attending St. Mary’s Bayview in East Providence, and then to the Massachusetts College of Art, where she earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts.
Married and the mother of three grown children, she began working for a printer and then a newspaper graphic designer before pursing her art fulltime some 15 years ago.
Today, her work can be seen in galleries from New York to New England. Locally, her works are in the Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, Bristol Art Gallery and Royal Gallery in Providence. Her works have been shown at the famous Salmagundi Club in New York City, as well as at galleries in the city.
She’s a member of the Providence Art Club, Colored Pencil Society of America, Art League of Rhode Island, Salmagundi Club of New York City, several other local art organizations, and the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, a national organization to show and promote works of professional women artists.