Arts & Entertainment
Local Painter Depicts Port Jeff As It Once Was
Exhibit currently on display at elementary school.
Louise Brett, whose historical paintings of Port Jefferson are currently on display at , says that even back in elementary school she excelled at art .
“I was always the best one,” she said.
Now in her 80s, Brett can still rival most others when it comes to painting and drawing. Her paintings of Port Jefferson’s past made from old pictures and postcards are currently on display in the large group room at the elementary school.
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Excited about the show, Brett says that she still paints every single day. She has over 80 paintings and two murals hanging in her home.
Brett and her twin sister, Augusta, were born in Setauket in 1928. The family moved to Port Jefferson a few years later and the sisters attended the Spring Street School. After spending sixth through eighth grades in parochial school they went to .
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According to Brett, she was always dedicated to honing her craft. As a child she walked to her art lessons in Mount Sinai with her brushes in her boots.
Decades later, Brett was able to tackle a project that combined her love of historical imagery and her hometown. She and former village historian Robert Sisler set about producing a painting to adorn the on West Broadway and Barnum Avenue.
The painting can be seen temporarily at the art exhibit in the elementary school. According to a description accompanying the picture inside the museum the scene shows the Phillips Roe complex as it would have appeared from the early 1770’s.
She painted it from words using letters, census data, an old Three Village Guidebook and an inventory of items owned by Phillip Roe at the time of his death provided by to her by Sisler.
“I painted it from descriptions,” she said. “Now we can see how Port Jefferson looked liked through my eyes.”
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