Internationally known local artist Michael Scherfen was honored by the Mayor and Council as the artist of the month at the June Council meeting after being introduced by Mayor Lori Hohenleitner as “her friend,” someone who “keeps us honest in Atlantic Highlands and is “an amazing artist who has won so many honors.”
Scherfen, in thanking the borough for the honor, also thanked local artist Morgan Spicer who nominated him for the honor, and promised the person he is nominating for the honor in the future is more talented than he.
The artist, whose work appears at the Arts Council on First Avenue and in more than 50 art shows during the year across the country and around the world, noted that while he has loved drawing since he was in the fourth grade and is a graduate of the Art Center in Los Angeles, his first water colors were of business people in Atlantic Highlands where he and his wife Marilyn have lived for more than 20 years.
With Bob Adams, the mailman his first portrait of a local business person and Marie Jackson his second, Scherfen said his habit is to give the portrait to the subject after it has appeared in shows, so that the memories are kept alive. The artist noted he loved his career with an ad agency so much he never felt like he ever worked.
Scherfen is an army veteran of the Vietnam war, and later worked with the late Donald Voorhees in watercolors.
While his work is renowned in numerous shows, and while he has won numerous awards and commendations for his work, Scherfen said he is humbled by the work of other artists and by the talent that is on exhibition at the Arts Council.
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