Block Island artist Marilyn Bogdanffy has just come out with a new book called “Artists of Block Island.” It is a celebration of both the place and the artists – of all genres, that inhabit and work here.
The book is a collection of watercolor portraits, all painted from photographs of the subjects, during the past year. It was Bogdanffy’s “pandemic project,” started during the shut-down and completed just as restrictions were being lifted.
The Block Island Times sat down with Bogdanffy on Sunday, at her home on the shore of Warden’s Pond on the southwest side of the island for a long conversation. Her elegantly styled hair and wardrobe belie a spark and tenacity that no doubt started at a very young age, was the first thing we learned.Marilyn’s father was killed in an accident when she was five, and her mother did her best to raise a daughter as a single mother in the waning years of the Great Depression. It was around that age when Marilyn started drawing and painting. “It was always in me,” she says, but despite her passion, a formal training in studio arts was not to be. At the time, women
