KENT — Every Thursday morning, year round, about 10 to 12 senior painters gather at the Senior Center for two hours of painting. The group is officially known as the Monday Morning Art Group. Member E.J. Johnston said even though they moved their weekly painting classes to Thursday mornings, the members decided to keep the original name.The oldest member of the group is 93-year-old Marie Camp. All are Kent residents.The art group is about more than just painting. The members also heartily enjoy companionship and many laughs as they concentrate on their work.Teacher Connie Horton helps the members learn new painting skills and to complete their individual projects.The members who attended the painting class on March 8, were excited about having some of their art exhibited in the Kent Art Association’s student art show from March 10 to 18.Bonnie Fremgen said many of the group members, but not all, also paint at their homes.Members of the group painted a large mural of the Kent Falls State Park waterfall on a wall of the Kent Senior Center. It took about three weeks to complete that project.On that afternoon, Jacque Petersen was working on a landscape of mountains southwest of Las Vegas, Nev., where she grew up. She was painting from memory.Fremgen was busy painting a scene of a country church in Vermont. “We have a home there,” she said of her choice of subject, that is why I selected this view.” She is painting the church both from memory and from a photograph she took of a favorite view.E. J. Johnston, creating a lighthouse on her canvas, was asked where the building was. “Imaginary,” she said succinctly.Pat Gallagher prefers to do portraits. As a way of refining her technique, she copies portraits she finds in art museum catalogues.Camp was engrossed in painting a farm scene. When asked how she chose her subject, she said, “Because my late husband was a farmer.”All the artists were painting in watercolor. Some had extensive brush collections with them. Members of the Monday Morning Art Group are Holly Adams, Camp, Beth Dooley, Dorli DiGregorio, Fremgen, Pat Gallagher, Horton, Johnston, Petersen, Margaret Solomon, Arnold Valentine and Alice Wolfe.The Kent Art Association is located at 21 South Main St. (Route 7). For information on the Kent senior art classes call Park and Recreation at 860-927-1003.To learn more about the Kent Art Association, go online to www.kentart.org.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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