If art reflects the artist, then that explains why the work of Lillian Attinasi mirrors the places she has called home including New York, Mexico, Indiana, and California. From the shores of Lake Michigan to the shores of the Pacific, artist Lillian Attinasi is exhibiting her creations in Gary now through Friday, July 2.

“I like my Gary home because it is the only place where I have a garden,” says the bicoastal creator who lives blocks from the sandy shores of Lake Michigan during the summer and in Long Beach, California during the winter. The garden, she says, allows her to relax her creative juices when needed.

California is not only the home of winter sunshine for Attinasi and her husband John, but their two children and three grandchildren. “In California, my children and grandchildren tend to keep me busy, in Gary, I can focus on my art,” added the former Gary Emerson Visual and Performing Arts School instructor. Her husband taught at Gary’s Beckman Middle School.

Her works includes ink drawings, portraits, abstract landscapes, oil on canvas/linen, surreal landscapes, woodblock prints in Japanese ukiyo-e technique, large scale dune landscapes, silkscreen and woodblock prints, collage-enhanced photography, and her most recent work using repurposed materials. “I worked in oils most of my career,” explained Attinasi who now limits her painting with oils. “Painting in oils is my passion, but after a while the turpentine started affecting me.”

The Marshall J. Gardener Center for the Arts is in the Miller Beach Arts & Creative District in Gary, Indiana. The district is a cultural hub at the southern-most tip of Lake Michigan; surrounded by the Indiana Dunes National Park. The regular gallery hours are Fridays and Saturdays 6p-8p and Sundays 2p–4p. A $5 donation is requested.
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