Dune delirium

“White Kite’’ (oil on canvas), by Kitt Shaffer, M.D., in the South Coast Artists’ Spring Invitational, at Dedee Shattuck Gallery, in Westport, Mass., through May 29.

The 75 SCA member artists will present 165 works, including works in oil, acrylic, pastel, encaustic, watercolor, metal, clay, mixed media, photography, collage, and more. For more information please visit dedeeshattuckgallery.com and southcoastartists.org.

Dr. Shaffer is vice-chair for education in radiology at Boston Medical Center. She says:

“My interest in art began in junior high school, when I took painting and jewelry making, winning a trip to Chicago for a portrait I did for a local art fair. But I never considered art as a career, since I already knew I wanted to go to medical school. In college at Kansas State, I was a pre-med, but managed to take all of the art classes I could fit in, mostly drawing (especially figure drawing), painting and sculpture. After I entered residency, I signed up for a pottery class with a friend at the Cambridge Adult Ed center, and fell in love with that, although I continued to paint and for many years, had a studio at Joy Street in Somerville, as well as a painting studio in the tiny town of Monterosso, Calabria, where we would go for a month every spring. I cannot do pottery at the moment due to the need for social distancing, we are no longer able to travel to Italy, and I had to let my Somerville studio space go, but I am hoping to be able to set up a new studio in Westport, Massachusetts, where I am spending more time now. Most of the paintings I have shared are recent work done in Westport or Italy, the drawings are from my annual teaching trips to St George’s University in Grenada, and the figurative sculpture is from several years ago done at the Harvard ceramics studio.’’