'Our Town': Little Compton portrait project paints the faces that tell the town's story

The faces of Little Compton, the people who've farmed the fields, fixed the cars, fished the water lining its edges, emerge from the brushstrokes of gray, red and yellow oil paint.

There's the retired mechanic, now in his 80s, with a cigar between his lips; the 35-year-old nursery owner who grew up in town and returned to raise a family; the young woman who works nets to haul fish from the sea.

"Our Town" is a portrait exhibit of Little Compton residents, documenting "the faces of those who define the town and thus tell its story," says Donna Pilkington, the resident who envisioned the exhibit and is pulling it together.

"The project goes beyond the 'summer reputation' to portray those who make up the diverse fabric of town life: farmers, veterans, students, mechanics, clerks, nurses, and more," the retired teacher wrote in a grant application to the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, which gave them $1,500.

Underway now with several artists painting portraits, the project will be unveiled Sept. 10 at the Little Compton Community Center as part of its 25th-anniversary celebration. Pilkington expects "Our Town" to include about 50 portraits.

Artist Rose Frantzen's "Portrait of Maquoketa" inspired Pilkington. For that, Frantzen spent a year painting 180 portraits of her neighbors in Maquoketa, Iowa. About a dozen years ago, Pilkington saw Frantzen's exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

"She did wonderful portraits," Pilkington said. "It was an absolutely amazing exhibit."

After seeing Frantzen's show, Pilkington told fellow community center board member Rhea Brooks, "We could do that." Pilkington and Brooks, who together ran the center's summer art show for two decades, mulled the idea for a while, and after a COVID delay, they're now making it happen. Pilkington hopes "Our Town" endures as an artistic archive long after its opening.

Nursery owner Chris Goulart was flattered when artist Janie Kinnane called to see if he would let her paint his portrait. "It's not every day you get a professional artist call you out of the blue to ask if you want to pose for a portrait," Goulart said.

Realizing that the project could become "a historic exhibit for our town," Goulart said, "I thought of it as a bit of an honor."

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Goulart, 35, grew up on a farm in Little Compton that's been in the family since 1922. He and his wife, Victoria, pregnant with their son, were living in a basement apartment in Washington, D.C., when they decided to return to Little Compton and take over for his retiring parents. Goulart is now running Franlart Nursery and the couple's son, Maximilian, is in kindergarten.

Sitting for his portrait in Kinnane's Charlie Lou studio was a new experience for Goulart, but he felt comfortable. Kinnane is a long-time friend. He hadn't seen her in a while, and they were able to catch up in conversation while she painted. Kinnane shares a building with her filmmaking brothers, several of whom also stopped in to chat.

Kinnane is a self-taught artist. She owned a landscaping company and surf camp before going into art full-time in 2017. Kinnane, 33, loved working outdoors, "my real passion," and was hesitant about being "trapped inside a studio," but friends and family encouraged her to commit to her artwork.

"As my grandfather said, 'When God gives you a gift, it's a sin not to use it,' " Kinnane said.

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Kinnane works mostly in water colors and making block prints, but she saw the portrait project as a good challenge, a chance to expand her work in oil painting. The subjects sit for two or three hours.

"It's been a whole different experience," Kinnane said. "You have to kind of work fast, and you have to be loose."

The painting of a portrait is personal for both the subject and the artist. Both have to expose the most personal aspects of themselves. The subject might think, "Is this how she sees me? I don't have all those wrinkles." The artist puts his or her work out there for the most sensitive and exacting of critics.

Goulart was pleased with the result of his session with Kinnane. "It looks good," he said. "She did a great job."

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Kinnane has done six portraits — including a high school student, a town employee and photographer in her early 30s — and she wants to keep painting up until the show opens. "I've definitely enjoyed it," she said. "It's a pretty special little town and community."

Pilkington believes the project will give a lot of people an inaugural exposure to art.

"For many people who are sitting (for a portrait), it's like their first introduction to the whole art scene," she said. "It's not like we have a lot of programs where art touches adults."

One subject, a man in his 80s, was delighted when he was asked to sit for a portrait. He told Pilkington he was as excited as a kid on his first day of school. "I wish you'd done this while my buddies were still alive, because most of my friends are gone and it would have been nice to have their portraits up," he told her.

"I think this has given him a deeper appreciation of the arts," Pilkington said.

The project is documenting a changing community, a town hidden in the corner of Rhode Island with water on two sides. It has no chain stores or chain restaurants, and still has farmland that rolls down to the water, Goulart notes.

But some of the traits that protect the land and lend its charm, like two-acre zoning, make it challenging for average working people to live here. Twenty years ago, the median sales price for a house in Little Compton was $335,000, according to the Rhode Island Association of Realtors. In April of this year, six houses were sold and the median price was $3,425,000.

It's difficult for people of Kinnane and Goulart's generation to stay in Little Compton despite their love for it. Goulart notes that his son's kindergarten class has just eight students. He says the town was never big, but his class three decades ago had 16 students.

Pilkington acknowledges the artists "have been using a lot of gray paint." She wants to add more young people to the project.

"The power of this project is generated from the large number of works on display and viewers hunting for those faces they know and see around town," Pilkington wrote in her grant application. "It is anticipated this will be a long standing exhibition in the building."

Pilkington hopes the younger subjects will still be able to view their portraits at the community center in 20 or 30 years, but she wonders how long their trip will be. "Will they still be around," she wonders, "or will they have moved away because they can't afford to live here?"

But that's years down the road, and there's more portraits to paint before September's show.

Pilkington says, "I think it's going to be the talk of the town."

jperry@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7614

On Twitter: @jgregoryperry

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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Little Compton portrait project paints faces that 'define the town'