AHA! NIGHT: OPENING RECEPTION

Join us on AHA! Night for the opening reception of Artistic Luminaries: Three Local Icons.

For decades, three friends — Willoughby “Bill” Elliott (1943–2016), Severin “Sig” Haines (1946–2023) , and Marc St. Pierre (1952–2019) — served as leading figures in the studios and classrooms of the Swain School of Design and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Their collective influence established a model of artistic and educational excellence that continues through successive generations of artists, remaining central to the South Coast’s creative identity. Through their distinct practices, all three mentors shared a vision of art grounded in discipline, experimentation, and craft. Elliott’s paintings translate the shifting atmosphere of the landscape into studies of light and form. St. Pierre’s layered prints and encaustic works explore the dialogue between structure and spontaneity. Haines’s refined compositions examine the relationships between color, structure, and perception. Each approached teaching as an extension of their studio practice, demanding discipline, curiosity, and a respect for process. Their students learned not only to create art, but also to think critically about it: to see relationships between space, tone, and texture as ways of understanding the world.