Rines, Mary Jo

Mary Jo Rines, 80, consummate artist, mother of three, and beloved by many, died peacefully on September 4, 2011, at her home in Weston after a brief but hard-fought battle against lung cancer.

As a student, teacher and award-winning artist, she supported art organizations throughout her career. She was the first female president (1988-90) of the 100-year-old New England Watercolor Society and remained a director for decades. Mary Jo was also a long-term member and chairman of the art committee of the Copley Society of Art in Boston and served as president of the fledgling Weston Arts and Crafts Association in Weston in the early 1960s. She was a major force in the conception and creation of the gallery at First Parish Church in Weston and served as its chair for many years.

Mary Jo Marcy was born on August 27, 1931, in Wilkes-Barre, PA, the daughter of the late Dr. Emmett and Josephine Marcy, and niece of the late Dr. Arthur Stull, a former chemist and high-ranking official in the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General during WWII.

She graduated from Skidmore College in June 1953 and was recruited by the super-secret National Security Agency and stationed in Washington, D.C., where she met Lt. S. Melvin Rines, a WWII Navy fighter pilot who had just returned from the Korean War. After a whirlwind courtship, they were married on February 28, 1954.

In addition to devoting herself to raising three children, she studied with highly trained and innovative artists, attended workshops, and worked in various paint media, creating traditional, abstract and contemporary works of art. Later she conducted her own workshops teaching techniques in watercolor in the Boston area and ran the Deep Cove Workshops from her studio in Southport Island, Maine, focusing on “Edge of the Sea” themes of shells, rocks, seaweed and sand moving with the tides.

She has won more than 46 painting awards, including the Gold Medal of Honor from the New England Watercolor Society, and was a Signature Member of the Transparent Watercolor Society of America. Mary Jo’s work has been widely exhibited in New England and national shows.

She has traveled throughout the world and led painting safaris in Kenya and Tanzania, capturing images of many cultures and animal life, converting sensitive sketches and fleeting photographs into living paintings through innovative shapes and exquisite color.

Although art in all its forms was of consuming interest, she was also an enthusiastic tennis and contract bridge player; a veteran skier throughout New England, the west, and Austria and Switzerland; a skilled sailboat racer in Boothbay Harbor, Maine; and cruiser in bareboat charters in the Caribbean, Greek Islands and Turkey. A latecomer to horsemanship, she learned to ride Eastern and Western saddle, accomplished basic dressage and jumping, and rode-to-the-hounds (twice!) in full regalia.

Mary Jo is survived by her husband, Mel, of Weston, a former managing director of Kidder, Peabody & Co.; her daughter, Marcy Venezia of Canton; her son, David, and his wife, Alisa, of Arlington; and five grandchildren. Mary Jo is also mother of the late Jeffrey W. Rines, who died in 1978.

Memorial services will be held at First Parish Church in Weston, 349 Boston Post Road, at 2 p.m. on September 23.

Arrangements entrusted to the care of the John C. Bryant Funeral Home of Wayland. For online condolences, please visit www.johncbryantfuneralhome.com.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the New England Watercolor Society for a perpetual Mary Jo Rines memorial award for Innovation in Art in the society’s biennial national show. Donations should be sent to the New England Watercolor Society c/o Joan Griswold, 146 Benvenue St., Wellesley, MA 02482. www.newenglandwatercolorsociety.org/index.html

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Posted by Canton Citizen on Sep 14 2011. Filed under Obituaries. Both comments and pings are currently closed.