By Shealagh Sullivan
Contributing Writer
NORTHBOROUGH — Pam Hall has been an artist all her life. At 80, she’s continued to find ways to challenge herself with a pen and paper, but she’d never had her work displayed publicly.
Until now.
A display at the Northborough Free Library showcased some of Hall’s work, small drawings inspired by stained glass windows. It was set up by Northborough resident Brian Huckins.
“At some point I thought, you know, these are really cool, people ought to see these things,” he said.
Huckins started volunteering to deliver groceries for Lowe’s Market during the COVID-19 pandemic. His deliveries brought him to Hall’s apartment, where he saw her drawing on newspaper crosswords and sudoku books, filling in the grids with intricate drawings of birds, castles, and flowers. Other times, she’d fill in each square of the grid with a different color, creating whirling patterns of color across the page.
Photo/Shealagh Sullivan
One day, Hall asked him while he was delivering groceries if he could pick up some pens for her.
And the rest is history.
Huckins brings her pens, and sturdy paper to draw on with grids. He built small wooden stands for her work in the cabinet and set up the public display — but it was never about him.
“Her life is pretty confined, but she’s still doing stuff, you know, I just feel like you gotta honor that,” Huckins said.
Hall grew up around art, she said. Her father, who died in World War Ⅱ, was also an artist, and she still has some of his work hung up in her apartment. She lives with her bird, Tiki, a cockatiel who she named in honor of him “shining a light back in [her] life.”
Tiki is featured in much of her art, along with other birds from outside her window or from calendar pictures. Hall’s inspirations come from both her family origins and the natural world. She grew up in Westborough, where her family lived for generations, before moving to Northborough in 1992.
According to Hall, her ancestors are originally from England and settled in the Westborough area before it officially became a town in 1717.
Calling back to English architecture, Hall’s drawings most often mimic stained glass, challenging her to create the illusion of light through the dark contrast. But when it comes to what to draw as the centerpiece, all she has to do is look out her window.
“Sometimes, Mother Nature does it for me,” Hall said.
Birds, Hall said, are “bellwethers of our whole environment.” Drawing them, getting every feather, wing, and beak precise, connects her to nature — and brings back nostalgia from growing up surrounded by animals and the outdoors.
While she calls some of her drawings “glorified doodling,” much of it calls to a deeper connection with Mother Nature and history. Through her work, Hall is able to tell the story of a robin outside of her window or a castle her niece visited along the Danube River.
In her work, Huckins saw more than just color. He saw her stories.
Hall grew up creating art — whether it was stick figures or a detailed portrait of Austrian actor Oscar Werner — she was always striving to capture a story on her canvas. Now, that same drive to create keeps her inspired.
“This is so much fun. I can keep doing it. I can keep my mind going,” she said.
Hall admitted she was a perfectionist and holds her work to high standards. Whether it’s the eyes of an owl or finding just the right way to make flowers stand out against a dark backdrop, she doesn’t “want anything going out that isn’t as good as it should be.”
When she deems the work up to her standards, she often gives away the small drawings to people.
“I want you to see the beauty, not because of me, but because it’s out there,” she said.
The library display is the first time Hall’s art has been exhibited publicly.
“[I want people to] just react to the nature that I’m trying to replicate,” Hall said. “[Birds] are sort of taking the temperature of a civilization in a way.”
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