QU’s Gray Gallery to host exhibition featuring Springfield pastel artist

QUINCY — Quincy University’s Gray Gallery in Brenner Library, is the host of the art exhibition “Nature’s Palette Pastels,” featuring works by Rosemary Buffington from Springfield. This free exhibition is taking place through Dec. 2 and is open to the public.

Buffington’s pastels usually depict nature. She has fondness for flowers, plants, and animals. Many of the paintings in the exhibit are of flowers from her garden or from gardens visited.

Buffington’s love of pastels started at age 8 when a second grade teacher told her parents she had ability in art. Her parents enrolled her in an art class, and that teacher taught pastels. She had the same teacher in high school, and she again presented the possibilities found in the medium of pastel.

After teaching art education for 37 years at New Berlin High School, Buffington retired in 2007. In retirement, the opportunity to work in pastels with the Illinois Prairie Pastel Society was a perfect fit. Now she keeps up her art interests in pastel painting and setting up the annual art exhibitions at the Illinois State Fair and On My Own Time Exhibit for the Springfield Area Arts Council.

Buffington is a member of the Prairie Pastel Society, the Water Garden Society for the Land of Lincoln and the Educational Center for the Visually Impaired Board. She does calligraphy and loves to travel in her spare time.

For more information, contact Gray Gallery curator Robert Mejer at mejerbob@quincy.edu.