MIDDLEBORO – Artists have spent the month of October painting various outdoor landscapes throughout Middleboro, local artist Peter Damon said. It’s all part of the 2023 Nemasket Plein Air Festival, a new event that will see artists exhibit paintings made in Middleboro at the True Grit Art Gallery.

Damon said that he and his wife had been planning the festival for the past two years and hope to make the festival an annual event. “As an artist myself, I drive here every day and get inspired by the local landscape,” he said. After customers at the True Grit Art Gallery started asking for artwork depicting cranberry bogs, he realized that the month of October would be a great time to invite artists to Middleboro.

“We call ourselves the cranberry capital of the world,” Damon said. “We had a lot of customers asking for cranberry bog” artwork.

According to Damon, the name “plein air festival” comes from the French phrase “en plein air,” which itself means “painting out of doors, in the open air.” As part of the festival, artists will spend the month of October making paintings in Middleboro, before exhibiting their paintings in November.

Some of the paintings will depict locations like Middleboro’s town hall and Lolans Farm in Middleboro.

The public is invited to the True Grit Art Gallery on Nov. 4 from 6 to 8 p.m. for the opening reception of the Nemasket Plein Air Exhibition, where the paintings created during the festival will be displayed. Many of the paintings will be for sale and the exhibition will last until Nov. 26.