“When there’s a hurricane coming, everything just kind of stops. You put all your focus and energy into securing your home and facing that possibility that everything could be lost. When you have to face that possibility, it’s a mental damper on the creative flow.” 

Last fall, artist and Old Northeast resident Elizabeth Barenis, a prolific and popular abstract painter, was in the midst of a very good year. On September 24, her successful solo exhibit at the Morean Arts Center, “Tropical Splendor,” came to a close. The same day, a system of thunderstorms in the tropics formed into a named storm that, within 48 hours, would prove historically catastrophic: Helene.… Read More