view issue - PrimeTime Cape Cod

CONTiNuED FrOm PAGE 24
married with children of their own: a
son in New Hampshire, a daughter in
New York and another son in nearby
Brewster. “He has a significant other –
and a puppy,” Devon announces with
as much joy as she takes in talking
about her grandkids, who range in age
from 10 years to 4 months. Since all
the Foley children are within driving
distance of her Orleans home with its
private beach on Pleasant Bay, summer
brings lots of company to the
spacious house they built 11 years
ago, designed by Devon herself.
Coming to Orleans was a family tradition;
her grandparents ventured here
from New York in the 1930s and she
has been coming since babyhood. “We
lived near the Jersey shore but we
didn’t want to go there. It was always
Orleans,” she says with a smile. Devon
and Jerry bought their first house here
in the 1980s and lived in Wayland,
Mass., while their current home was
under construction.
She didn’t pick up a paintbrush
again until she arrived in Naples, after
retirement. The condo the couple had
purchased was turnkey-furnished and
her ever-practical husband remarked,
“You don’t have to change a thing, do
you?”
“Well, maybe a little,” Devon
replied, jokingly referring to their dissimilar
way of looking at things: “the
two sides of the brain, the CPA brain
and the artist brain.” All the artwork
came down, packed off to thrift shops
and church fairs, replaced with a full
flowering of pet portraits all done in
her signature whimsical style, infused
with love and humor. She was following
the dictum of her Florida teacher,
Rona Steingart: “Paint what you like
best.”
Those beloved beings adorn the
walls in Orleans as well. There are
Abby and Kirby, her two English
bulldogs, seated on a red Queen Anne
wingback chair with floral tapestry
behind them and fancy collars adorning
their hefty necks. A tortoise tabby
peeks from behind one of the chair’s
curved cabriole legs. These pets have
passed away but the portraits keep
them forever close at hand.
On another wall is a distinguishedlooking
couple, Jewelius, an uppity
Boston terrier, and his female counterpart,
Jewelia, a black and white cat
with her own haughty stare. Sparkling
jewels adorn their background in a
delightful mixed-media embellishment.
“These two just seemed to go
together as a couple,” says Devon. In
another painting, her son’s bulldog
looks chastened after edging too close
to a kitty dish adorned with fish, the
property of a Persian princess who
fixes him with a cold stare.
“Each one of my paintings tells a
story,” says the artist, who does pet
portraits from photos, asking clients
to provide images of favorite toys
and furniture as well as indicating
the colors they prefer. Her current
commissions include a pair of Brittany
spaniels, the cherished pets of a
90-year-old friend.
Flowers, animals, fishes, birds and
insects abound on canvas, wood, furniture,
leather, prints, handbags, greeting
cards – even elegant salt and pepper
mills that sold for more than $200 at
last year’s Holly Berry Bazaar where
her painted rocking horses and picnic
baskets were also hot items.
As a member of the Cape Cod
Hospital Auxiliary’s Orleans chapter,
which holds the bazaar biannually,
this is one of the artist’s favorite
charities. The 2008 event raised over
$60,000 to benefit Cape Cod Hospital’s
cardiac care center. Proceeds
for the one held last November at
Orleans’ Nauset Regional Middle
School benefited the hospital’s mammography
and breast care center. For
that show, Devon worked on rocking
horses, shell boxes and wooden ornaments.
Devon paints in acrylics, her color
palette influenced by her love for
the hand-painted Mackenzie Childs
tableware she displays in her kitchen.
An old wooden chair is decorated
in this style while her antique washing
machine (half a tin drum with its
wooden plank top lovingly refinished)
bears a delightful beach motif, a fanciful
homage to life on Cape Cod.
Devon is equally famous for her
unique shell mirrors, two of which
are at the Cape Cod Museum of
Art in Dennis, where she has taught
workshops on their design as she has
done at the Naples Museum of Art in
Florida. A team of women gathered in
the Barnstable barn of her furniture
painting teacher, Ginny Boylan, to assemble
the extra-large mirror for the
Cape museum’s ladies room. Her mirrors
may start out as scratch-and-dent
bargains but by the time she’s finished
with priming, painting and Gorilla
Glue-ing, they are ornate masterpieces
containing shells, starfish, stones
and barnacles as well as jewelry, old
buttons, tie tacks, earrings and even
a strand of pearls. “Stuff that was in a
PRIMETIMECAPECOD.com 25
Merrily Cassidy/Cape Cod TiMes
Devon Foley’s mirrors start out as damaged
bargains, but they become works of
art as she adds layers of shells and trinkets.
This one hangs in her hallway.
drawer that nobody would ever look
at,” as she puts it.
Among the coral and “old maid’s
curls” shells from Florida on the mirror
in her hall you will find a pair of
her mother’s earrings and the padlock
to her girlhood diary. Devon has
donated some of these unique works
to the Holly Berry Bazaar and sold
them at various venues, including the
Cape Cod Museum, Adlumia and The
Hope Chest Consignment Shop, both
in Orleans, and at numerous arts-andcrafts
fairs.
As her nursing career wound down,
Devon dove headfirst into community
pursuits. She has been an active
member of several newcomers clubs;
served on hospital and museum
boards of directors; in Wayland, taught
workshops on painted birdhouses, tote
bags and mail boxes; and volunteered
at an adult day care center for Alzheimer’s
patients.
The Nauset Newcomers Club
provided her pathway to community
here on the Cape. Membership in its
Nurses Group led to membership in
the Cape Cod Hospital Auxiliary. Devon
is also an American National Red
Cross Nurse, a lifetime volunteer. In
Orleans, she’s a member of the Pond
Coalition, Improvement Association
and the Historical Society.
Quickhits
WebLinks
Samples of Devon Foley’s work
may be viewed at:
www.designsbydevonfoley.com
To commission a pet portrait,
painted furniture or shell mirror,
call Devon on Cape Cod at 508-
240-3555 or during the off season
in Naples at 239-514-4993.
Cape Cod Hospital Auxiliary –
Orleans Branch
www.capecodhealth.org/body.
cfm?id=382
Nauset Newcomers
www.nausetnewcomers.org
Devon’s life has come full circle
since her mother gave her that advice
long ago, but she has no regrets about
her career path. “I went to Children’s
Hospital because I thought I could
learn to take care of children – and
the ones I hoped to have someday. I
learned so much about childhood illness
around the world in the process.
It was just fabulous. I really enjoyed
my career as a nurse – and a mother.”
And her long-dormant creativity? “It
was in me from the time I was little
and it’s still there. My most influential
person was my high school art teacher
in New Jersey, Sherman Dance. He’s
long gone now, but I’ll always remember
how he taught us calligraphy, how
to make wallpaper, lettering and block
printing with linoleum – the old-fashioned
basics.”
Since most mornings find her out
and about or walking with neighborhood
friends, Devon spends afternoons
in her home studio. “Sometimes
Jerry has to remind me that it’s dinner
time,” she laughs. She sells some of
her work at the Sweet Art Gallery in
Naples and also designs her signature
avant-garde jewelry that seems to sell
better in that resort locale than it does
here on the Cape.
Her work reflects a playful and
optimistic spirit, perhaps because her
sea-blue eyes still view the world with
the wonder of a child. She turns to
her latest endeavor: two paintings of
Chinese vases, one depicting a mother
bird that chose to build her nest in
one of these ornate vessels. “I think
I’m going to name it ‘Don’t Mess with
Mama.’”
Her old teacher would be proud –
and her mother probably would be,
too.