on 01-27-2009 03:00

By RUSS OLIVO

PAWTUCKET - Mild-mannered news reporter Donna Kenny Kirwan may not be able to change the course of mighty rivers of bend steel in her bare hands. But lately she's having as much trouble as Superman trying to keep her talents a secret.

A staff writer for the Pawtucket Times, Kirwan is well known for chronicling the events of the day in the local paper. When no one's looking, she slips into a nearby telephone booth of the soul and trades in her notebook for a sable brush and a sheet of watercolor paper.
While painting is an exceedingly personal pursuit for Kirwan, she'd have to be the Invisible Man, never mind Clark Kent, to get around taking a bow for some of the accolades that have come her way recently. Earlier this month, Kirwan's painting of the Block Island Ferry took the first-place "Best in Show" award in Governor Donald Carcieri's annual "Scenes of Rhode Island" art contest.
But that was just the start of it.
The same day she won the governor' s contest, Kirwan found out that another one of her works was accepted in the American Watercolor Society's prestigious annual juried exhibit at the Salmagundi Gallery in New York City. With thousands of skilled artists vying to gain entry into the exhibit from around the country, it's an honor just to get in, let alone with a prize, which could come later, says Kirwan.
"This was a big deal for me," she says. They picked probably less than a hundred artists from all over the country. I've been trying to get in for 10 years and this was the year. I've been on a roll this month, I guess."
Kirwan's painting of lobsters cooking on the stove, entitled "Uprising," will hang in Manhattan's Salmagundi Gallery from March 31 to April 26, along with those of the other contenders. After the exhibit, a panel of professional artists will pick winners and hand out thousands of dollars in cash prizes. The 143-year-old AWS says it considers its entries to be "the best contemporary watercolors by the best artists working in water-based mediums."
Kirwan, 49, of Rumford, says painting has been a serious sideline for her since she fell under the spell of her inspirational instructor at East Providence High School, Anne Rourke,
who retired a couple of years ago.  When Kirwan got to the University of Rhode Island, she double-majored in journalism and English, with a minor in art.
"I was also always interested in journalism," says Kirwan, who freelanced for The Times for 13 years before joining the staff full-time about two years ago. As a reporter, Kirwan says she enjoys being in the thick of ever-changing current events, getting to know the newsmakers and keeping everyday people informed about what's going on in their community.
Painting, she says, is her "stress-reliever." When her children were growing up, she'd sometimes sneak away to her studio in the middle of the night for a creative breather. Now her daughter, Allison, 16, seems to have inherited a penchant for art as she pursues interests in fashion and photography. She and her husband, Michael, also have a son Jim, 18, who is a freshman at Providence College.
With a full-time job and a family, it's still hard to devote as much time as she'd like to painting, says Kirwan, "but I fit it in when I can."
The recent honors aren't the first time Kirwan has earned recognition from her artistic endeavors. In 2006, she took a second-place prize in the Scenes of Rhode Island contest for a painting of historic Slater Mill.
Kirwan, who says her influences range from the austere streetscapes of Edward Hopper to the exuberant naturalism of Georgia O'Keefe, describes her images as a sort of "stylized realism." Generally, she works from photos and chooses local subjects, from Block Island life to the architectural landmarks of downtown Providence. She also does home portraits, but often her most well-received subjects are those with strong regional appeal, she says.
Case in point: The highest price ever fetched by one of her works was $600 for a painting of the iconic Haven Brothers diner parked alongside the Biltmore Hotel. The buyer was a Rhode Island native who apparently wanted something to remind him of the hometown after he moved to California.
Kirwan works almost exclusively in watercolors, which can be harder to control than oil paints or water-based acrylics. She says there's something unpredictable and exciting about it that keeps her coming back for more.
"I just like what happens when you put in on the paper," she says. "You never know how it's going to react."