Francesca D’Atria Romano
Francesca D’Atria Romano
The Paint and Palette Club at Robson Ranch is now in its fifth year and still growing in membership.
President Francesca D’Atria Romano called the meeting to order at 10 a.m. on Jan. 22. She began to give an account of how this art club started when she first moved here to the Ranch. She first met a few of the artists in Room 103 back in 2019. When she asked if any of the artists exhibit their artworks at the Ranch, she recalled that they weren’t interested in doing that and that they just liked to come in and use the room.
Well, needless to say, Francesca had another vision for this group, and she began to share her thoughts and expertise with the group. She immediately spoke to Shelbi Berg and started to plan out exhibition space and themes for both a fall exhibition and a spring exhibition. Some very successful exhibitions like “The Dressed-Up Easels” and “The Chair Exhibition” were very well received by our residents and are still spoken about today.
In addition, she helped to set up monthly programs where our residents could see and participate in learning how to paint and be creative by teaching classes along with other artists. Through her guidance, she has left this organization in fine financial standing, and membership has grown tremendously.
All in all, it was time for Francesca to step down from the presidency and to now concentrate on her other obligations and organizations that she belongs to. Francesca sits on many arts boards, helping to promote the arts in Denton. She is a board member of the Greater Denton Arts Council, Visual Arts Society of Texas, and just recently she was sworn into her City Hall position of Denton Public Arts representative.
Francesca also teaches art history for OLLI/UNT. She also is often asked to judge art exhibitions and give painting lessons to other arts organizations.
One of her latest paintings entitled Take Only What You Need was accepted and is on display at the Lewisville Art Gallery.
Francesca looks forward to working with the new officers of Paint & Palette: President Judy Riffel, Vice President Carol Ripley, Treasurer Debe Dent, and Secretary Ann Swircznski.
She would like to thank all of the members who have helped her along the way to grow this organization.