Bob and Patricia Andrews were founding board members of the Orange Revitalization Partnership in the 1990s. Now, one of their daughters has an exhibit on display to help support the nonprofit that holds a special place in her heart.
Dr. Michelle Andrews’ art exhibit opened at Stage on Main, the community arts space at 17 South Main St., on Sept. 2 and is on view through December. All art sales proceeds will benefit the Orange Revitalization Partnership, a volunteer-led nonprofit that was formed to play a role in reinvigorating Orange.
“Sure I can sell it, but why not … make a donation, keep the money in Orange?” she said. “To shine a light on this really important cause.”
The exhibit consists of 32 oil paintings, including New England landscapes, working harbors and quiet still lifes. Nine paintings sold in the first week, raising $850 for the Orange Revitalization Partnership. The paintings are priced from $50 to $150.
“I picked [oil] because it’s just so luscious,” Andrews said. “It’s very forgiving; it’s moldable. You can come back to it.”
“She has some wonderful landscapes, some great small paintings of ocean waves, a few other interesting things — horses and stuff like that. She has some local pieces, focused on Lake Mattawa, which is where they grew up,” said Lynn Boudreau, who manages Stage on Main. “It’s beautiful. One of the pictures, which was my favorite, is of a little [alley cafe] in Newburyport, and has been sent to the person who bought it.”
Andrews, who grew up in Orange and lives in Cincinnati, will be on site for a meet-the-artist reception from 5 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3. Refreshments will be provided by the New Salem General Store, whose proprietors, Natalie and Jeff Reynolds, are taking on part of the cost in support of the benefit. There is also a donation box at the gallery and signed postcards can be purchased for $5.
The venue’s hours can be found on its Facebook page, facebook.com/stageonmain, with open hours Wednesday through Saturday.
Andrews’ path to painting was an atypical one. She graduated from Ralph C. Mahar Regional School in 1976 and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst before going to medical school in Philadelphia, training to become an orthopedic surgeon at Yale School of Medicine and joining the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Her love of art began as an undergraduate student when she enrolled in an art history course. She then began to frequent the art museums in every city she lived in, falling in love with how they transport her to a timeless space.
“It was such a delight after all the hard science,” she recounted, adding that eventually she made a New Year’s resolution to give it a try.
Andrews is a signature member of both the Cincinnati Art Club and the Woman’s Art Club of Cincinnati, and an associate member of Oil Painters of America. Her recent honors include the 2026 Richeson75 Artistic Merit Award, Plein Air Salon finalist recognition and a Strokes of Genius 17 finalist selection, with paintings held in private and corporate collections across the country. Her paintings have twice been juried into National Oil & Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS) exhibits this year — most recently the 2026 NOAPS Associate Member Online Exhibition — and into the Oil Painters of America (OPA) Spring Online Showcase.
She retired as a surgeon in 2018 and now has time to paint at least weekly, and as often as possible.
“Medicine, you can never learn it all; and painting and art, you can never learn it all. So it will be a lifelong pursuit,” she noted. “I am drawn to beauty.”
But Andrews is used to forging new paths, having been the first female physician for the Baltimore Orioles in the early 1990s after receiving an affirmative vote from the owners, players and coaching staff. She said the first team member she met was legend Cal Ripken Jr., who now holds a record for playing in 2,632 consecutive games and is enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“He said, ‘Hi, I’m Cal Ripken,’ and I thought to myself, ‘Everybody knows you’re Cal Ripken.’ This is one of the most famous men in baseball,” she recalled with a laugh. “But he was very humble, and he basically set the tone of the locker room.”
