NORWICH – Carl Houghton, a local artist and retired art teacher from the Unadilla Valley school system, will be the featured exhibitor at the Mariea Brown and Raymond Loft galleries from Friday, April 20 through May 18. Carl won “Best of Show” at the Chenango County Council of the Arts annual members show in 2005 and his award is this one-man exhibit that will feature new paintings and prints. His unique use of colors, choice of subject matter and many years of experience come through in each painting that will astound the viewer with an ethereal experience. Of his current new line of paintings, Carl says “my retirement has become yet another phase for my creative impulses to evolve and mature. I have been working toward a more open and free feeling as I experiment and take more chances in my approach to painting. I have found a wonderful focusing, healing quality in my creative spirit, perhaps partly as a result of recent illnesses and set-backs and also, as a result of a renewed spirit of a higher nature.”