Miriam ( Mimi) Fernald Wiggin – a contemporary New England Artist
There is an ethereal quality to Mimi’s paintings that recalls a simpler time. Born in the Hudson Valley of New York, Mimi moved at an early age to Georgetown, Massachusetts and then spent most of her childhood in Stratham, New Hampshire, where she developed a passion for rural New England life. “Many artists travel for hundreds of miles to find the subjects for their paintings,” she says, “I simply step out my front door.”
In the 1920s, her grandfather Robert Rout West, then a resident of Alexandria, Virginia purchased a small dairy farm in the Mink Hills of Warner, New Hampshire. Mimi remembers hearing how the family would arrive by locomotive and trudge up the hill with their travel trunks intent on enjoying lazy summers at “the Farm”. She draws inspiration from these old family stories, as well as photographs and letters through the ages. She also has many fond memories from her own childhood of gardening and watching birds with her grandmother.
In the late 1980s, Mimi became the third generation to live at “the Farm” in Warner. Her paintings are infused with the landscapes, scenery, wildlife and history of the peaceful New England life she so enjoys.
Mimi painting style is influenced by an admiration for the late 19th century painters and workshops with contemporary artists Dennis Sheehan and Diane Rath.