A chip off the old Block(s), in photo show at library

SHARON — “That’s not what a tree looks like,” said the teacher, of the drawing.

Nadia Block had received her first art review. She was in second grade. 

She tells me this story while  I am sitting in her Brooklyn apartment, which doubles as her studio, being licked by an affectionate Great Dane named Lily (a rescue) and observing walls covered with her paintings and photography, as well as decorated and repurposed artifacts she found on the street. 

It is worth noting that the blood of artists runs in her veins and that art has surrounded her life. Her late grandmother, Lily Block, was a painter. Her late grandfather, Zenas Block, began sculpting at the age of 80. Her father was a ceramicist. Her step-grandmother, Janet Block, is a well-known artist in this area and has had many a show here. 

Nadia was always drawn to the creative. She could see an ordinary object and imagine turning it into something beautiful …repainting a piece of scuffed, warped, discarded furniture … fashioning discarded beads and buttons into jewelry … reviving an old, “found” surfboard and hanging it from the ceiling like a chandelier. 

Still, a career in any kind of art seemed remote for a youngster who, according to her second-grade teacher, couldn’t even draw a tree — an amusing fact to keep in mind as you view a collection of her artistic, very individual and personal photographs in “Cuba, Unplugged” at the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon from May 12 through June 28. 

Block’s interest in photography runs parallel to and is intertwined with her painting insofar as the majority of her canvasses originated in photographs. A dedicated runner who always carries a camera, something would catch her eye — she would stop, shoot, resume her run and then go home to paint the image. 

But at the suggestion of a friend, she began posting some of her photos on Instagram and suddenly was winning award after award on the site. The recognition she received for her pictures from a trip to Cuba were particularly satisfying to her.

Cuba captivated her. Not its beauty so much. Beauty is easy to photograph. Rather its character, its culture, the idiosyncrasies and emblems that capture the essence of its present and its past. 

Block was on the first plane available for refugees to return to their homeland. In front of her, a vast line of wheelchairs waited to board. She snapped the photo and from that moment was determined to use her camera to tell the Cuban story in her photographs: the vintage cars, the chewed cigars, the lonely beaches, the deadly cockfights, even the quality of the air. “Horrendous,” she told me. Suffusing everything.

Can one capture the quality of air in a photograph? Come see Nadia’s Block’s show. 

An opening reception with wine and cheese and a chance to meet and talk to the artist will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, May 16. 

For further information, call 860-364-5041 or go to www.hotchkisslibrary.org.