by Jessica Scarpati

Most people who knew Alice Virginia Kettelhack, a prominent Amityville artist, felt the same sense of calm and serenity in her presence that they saw in her paintings, her son Guy Kettelhack said. Mrs. Kettelhack, a 54 year resident of Amityville who spent much of her life painting Long Island seascapes, died July 7, 2003. She was 85 years old.

"The impact of her art on just about everybody was engendering serenity.  She created this kind of aura and feeling of calm and peace in her work," said her son. "This was her place: the sea and sky and the bays and beaches."

Born in Brooklyn Heights on Christmas Eve, 1917, Mrs. Kettelhack enrolled in the Art Students League school in Manhattan at the age of 17, where she studied with acclaimed water colorists Frank Dumond and George Bridgeman. According to her son, she was born an artist and knew what she wanted to do from a young age. Art, Kettelhack said, was his mother’s mission.

"My mother never had a hobby in her life," he said. "She only did things she had a passion for."

While experimenting with oil paints and pen and ink for many years, Mrs. Kettelhack did not discover her favorite and defining medium, watercolors, until her mid-50s. Using them, she was able to capture the majesty of what she found most beautiful—skies.

"If there was a sunset that took her breath away, she grabbed a camera and took a picture of it," said her son. "She just loved the kinds of effects the sky and sea make here; there’s a very subtle misty quality that she just loved."

Even in their family home videos, Kettelhack recalled with a laugh, how his mother would sometimes just point the camera toward the sky because its beauty captivated her.

Her son, a writer and violinist, described her love of art as "extraordinary," a passion she passed on to him as well. For some people, Kettelhack said, "art is a kind of nice thing to do on the side.

"For my parents, it was their whole being," he said. "These things were valued very highly, and I was encouraged to go for what I loved."

Also having worked as a commercial artist, Mrs. Kettelhack designed covers for a music publisher, created patterns for a fashion artist and worked at a greeting card company. She designed note pads, using pen and ink, which depicted Amityville scenes and were sold in gift shops around Long Island. Each Easter and Christmas, Mrs. Kettelhack also placed ads in the Amityville Record to paint and sell portraits.

Kettelhack said that this drive was all a part of his mother’s quiet strength.

"This was a woman determined to do what she wanted to do and she did it with a lot of integrity," said her son.

Art seemed to be integrated into everything Mrs. Kettelhack touched, according to her son. Whether it was the exquisite care she and her husband took to design and upkeep her Amityville home, or the delicate way she tended to her flower and tomato gardens.

"It’s an extraordinary house that is purely a product of my parents’ love and hard work," said Kettelhack. "It reflects what they valued in art, in a way."

While attending school, Mrs. Kettelhack met her late husband and fellow artist Carl Herman Kettelhack; they married in 1943. After living together in Forest Hills, Queens, they moved to Amityville six years later.

"They were thrilled at the thought that they could be near the Great South Bay," Kettelhack said. "[My mother] always went to Rockport, Massachusetts as a child. She was drawn to the sea from about the moment she found it."

Mrs. Kettelhack and her husband also traveled throughout the New England coast for inspiration. One painting that she refused to sell, depicts a misty scene in Maine, which she started and finished at the site. Before her death, she gave the cherished painting to a very close friend.

While she exhibited her work in shows in New England, Mrs. Kettelhack also remained active in her own community, displaying her paintings in art shows all over Long Island. Last April, she showcased about 40 paintings at the First Methodist Church in Amityville.

"We enjoyed her art immensely and the folks understood her to be the ‘dean’ among the other artists," said Reverend Erik Rasmussen. "She was spoken of very fondly by the other artists who were here."

Mrs. Kettelhack was also a member of Penwomen, a national organization that invites women of accomplishment; the Salma Gundhi Club, an art club in New York that she was invited into and to which she contributed paintings every year; and she was a lifetime member of the Art Students League.  She was also a longtime member of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

She was also honored in the "Who’s Who of American Women" and "Who’s Who in the East."

Her involvement inspired those who knew her, like longtime friend and artist Mildred Aries of Massapequa Park, who met Mrs. Kettelhack while studying at the Art Students League.

"She always encouraged me to get more involved than I did, and she was a person who did get involved very much in the arts," said Aries. "Because of her I did more than I would have without her."

While she was very accomplished, many knew Mrs. Kettelhack as simple, modest and elegant, said her son. She was "a real lady without any airs; she was very direct, but with great dignity and also a sense of fun," he said.

Aries added that people were drawn as much to the artist as they were to the art, which was exhibited in many malls across Long Island.

"She loved to laugh and enjoyed a good joke. To some degree she was outgoing; people seemed to go to her," she said.

As a mother, she was mindful of her children, and in more ways than one. Kettelhack recalled a conversation he had with his mother a few days before her death. He walked into the room and asked her if she was in any distress; she replied ‘no,’ and asked her son how he felt.

"I said, ‘Oh, I’m feeling good.’  She paused and said, ‘No, you feel well,’" said Kettelhack with a laugh.

"Somehow at that point of extremity, she managed to correct my grammar, but she also still asked me how I was feeling. Her concern was two-pronged."

Guy Blake Kettelhack of Amityville survives his mother.  Her husband Carl and her son Robert Alan predeceased her.

Mrs. Kettelhack reposed at Powell Funeral Home, Broadway, Amityville. A funeral service at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church was led by Father Randolph Jon Geminder. Cremation services were private. Interment of ashes was in St. Mary’s Chapel.