Ellen Petrey of Bayside won first prize in the Bayside Historical Society's “A Celebration of the Arts” exhibition for her watercolor painting of the Florence Market in Italy.
“It was great. I was thrilled,” Petrey said, after finding out she had won first prize while visiting the gallery to look at the other exhibits.
In fact, Petrey was not even going to enter the competition in the first place.
“It was just that I was down there to see another show and someone mentioned it to me so I said what the hell.”
Petrey entered a total of three paintings in the contest, but her Florence Market painting received top honors.
Petrey, who has been interested in the arts since she was 3, has spent her career doing graphic design for books and magazines as well as architectural rendering, but now has focused more on her paintings. She has a collection of many different paintings of places from Italy and New York, and she has started her own website in order to display her paintings.
The City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Senator Frank Padavan, Bank of New York and the Bayside Business Association sponsored the exhibition “A Celebration of the Arts.”
To view more of Petrey's paintings log onto her website at https://www.clnpaintndraw.com
On a whim, woman wins contest!
By Pete Davis
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