The colorful artwork of Marie Betts Bartlett will adorn New England Public Radio's 2018 "Art Mug" available to contributing listeners as a thank you gift beginning with station's fall fund drive which is underway now.
The mug is number thirteen in a series that has continued to be popular with NEPR's listeners over the years. Bartlett's design was selected from dozens of entries received by the station this year during an open call for submissions that began in July.
The mug's colorful representation of the letters N, E, P and R filled with intricate drawings of familiar western New England landscapes and people made an immediate impression on the selection committee, which includes members of NEPR's development and marketing teams.
"Marie's design is colorful, whimsical and fun to look at," said Rima Dael, Executive Director of Development and Major Gifts, who helped select the this year's winner. "We ask for designs inspired by NEPR in some way, and Marie really hit a home run with her clever use of our letters, the seasons, and even a bit of subtle radio mechanics -- as she explained to us, the tree branches in one panel are designed to look like radio wires, diodes and resistors essential to radio transmissions."
Bartlett has written and illustrated two children's books, "The Little Yellow Trolley Car" and "Poppy's Purpose," which was featured in NEPR's Back to School Books Series of author interviews in 2016. She lives in Leyden, Massachusetts.
"I create different layers of color and design, and then place them on top of each other," says Bartlett explaining her process. "So for example with the daffodils, I began by 'painting' with yellows and greens in one layer, and then added a layer of blue sky. To form the 'N' shape, I made a separate layer of all yellow and 'erased' the 'N' shape from it. Then I placed this on top of the layers of daffodils and sky. The window showing the corn and the Holyoke range was way more complicated and probably had over 300 layers in it."
Bartlett is also a contributing listener to New England Public Radio. "We give because we pay for groceries, heating our home, driving our car, purchasing our bicycles and skis." she says. "These are all essential to the quality of our lives, and so is listening to NEPR. So we pay for it just like we pay for fuel, because having it in our lives matters."
Each summer, New England Public Radio puts out a call for artists to create a design for the Art Mug. Past mugs have featured the work of Peter O. Zierlein, Lois Barber, Jan Sabach, and others. For more information on the submission guidelines, and to see each of the thirteen mugs in the collection, visit nepr.net/artmug.
The 2018 Art Mug designed by Marie Betts Bartlett is available for a contribution of $120 (or $10 per month), or more to New England Public Radio. To become a contributing member, visit nepr.net/donate.
