POST January/February 2015

Carol Acquilano has been working out of her Anderson Street
studio since 1989, long before the street—and area—was popular.
Acquilano’s magnetic energy bounces off the walls, as warehouse
windows shed natural light on new, old, and even unfinished pieces
around the room.
“I derive constant inspiration from nature,” she says with a smile.
“I love working outdoors because nature is so intensely beautiful, plus
I love the light, the fresh air and sounds and wide-open feel. … Night
sketching outdoors is the ultimate! All about the direct experience and
being in the moment. No matter about the finished thing. I think it is
pure creativeness, when one can barely make out what one is doing, just
reacting to the feel and sense of light and dark.”
Following a dream that was born in art class at Brighton High
School, Acquilano studied painting and stained glass at the School of the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before returning home to Rochester.
Today her art cycles through a mixture of acrylic and oil paint,
watercolor, imaginative printmaking using reduction wood cuts as her
medium, bookbinding, and creating artistic sketch books.
“I am unable to come up with a specific category that I neatly fit
into,” she says. “But I am part of a river of creative individuals who have
a need to work at making art. I am part of a ‘we’ whose job is to follow
our passion.”
As to her process, she points out that, “There is no start but rather a
‘jump in.”
—Jen Brunett