Artists help draw out donors for state parks.

Byline: Rick Eggleston

COLUMN: OUTDOORS

It started innocently enough. Anita Wos was poking around the state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Web site, searching for contact information about a specific park when she came across a call for local artists.

"I immediately told Lenny about it," Wos said, referring to her husband, an accomplished part-time painter and cartoonist. "It was perfect timing."

Indeed, it was serendipity at its finest for the Shrewsbury couple, who live on the banks of Lake Quinsigamond, home to a DCR state park that includes Regatta Point and Lake Park in Worcester.

So what exactly do the DCR and artists have in common?

When it comes to raising money, everything.

Tomorrow the DCR with pay tribute to Lenny Wos and nine other artists, including Whitinsville's Renee Weihn, who donated their time and talent to paint wildlife and landscape scenes on metal contribution containers called Iron Rangers in 12 state parks.

The 3-1/2-foot-long steel cylinders hold financial contributions from people using the parks. Money collected from the Iron Rangers, some $19,000 annually, is used to fund educational programs and conservation projects in the state parks system through the Conservation Trust.

To date, the DCR has installed 153 Iron Rangers at 94 state properties, including the dozen most recent areas highlighted in the four-year-old Iron Ranger Painting Program, which allows artists to display their work while greatly improving the otherwise-industrial look of the steel cylinders.

What's more, the DCR has found that the painted cylinders boost revenue by attracting attention and resulting in more generous contributions.

Judging by the creativity and scenes depicted on the Iron Rangers, it's easy to see why. The artwork is inspired by each area's unique natural beauty and attractions.

Relatively speaking, Lenny Wos had it easy. Lake Quinsigamond was the main reason the former newspaper sports cartoonist moved here from the West Coast.

"I moved here specifically to be on Lake Quinsigamond," said Wos, an avid rower who met Anita - herself a rowing addict - while sculling on the lake as a member of the Killer Bees Rowing Club. "We had our wedding literally on the lake in a rowboat."

That was four years ago. Nowadays, the couple takes full advantage of Lake Quinsig and all its beauty to run their Web-based business, www.theartofrowing.com. Their lakeside condo is also home to Bright Water Gallery, where Lenny creates and sells his paintings of all things rowing.

But Wos' latest creations are a pair of painted Iron Rangers for the DCR.

The first one depicts Lake Quinsigamond's bustling Regatta Point area, for which Wos used a variety of colors to show a scene of beachgoers, a sailboat, and - of course - rowers. A nice touch at the top of the tube is a circle of oar blades with the team colors and insignias of Worcester's various college crew teams.

Lake Park was the focus of the second Iron Ranger Wos painted. For it, he used the park's track and football field to create interesting depth, complete with a father and son flying a kite in the foreground.

"The (Iron Ranger's) circular shape was great for painting the track because it's continuous," Wos said.

Meanwhile, the inspiration for Weihn's winning designs came to her literally at work. That's because her workplace is the Purgatory Chasm State Reservation in Sutton, where she has been a supervisor the past 17 years.

"I've always liked to draw, so I decided to give it a try," said Weihn, whose design of a pair of baby raccoons peeking through a hole in a tree won over the judges. "I was thinking the raccoons would be something different than just painting the rocks here."

Weihn's Iron Ranger is stationed near the visitors' center, but her inspiration didn't stop there.

Following the recent opening of a playground at the site, Weihn figured that was as good a place as any to install an Iron Ranger. And so was born her next creation - an appropriately appointed cylinder colorfully painted with the handprints of various children.

The best part: "They're actual handprints from the kids of relatives, friends and a couple of DCR park rangers," she said.

Wos, Weihn and nine other artists and their work will be recognized tomorrow during a ceremony at Purgatory Chasm.

Hunting date dropped

Controlled archery hunting for deer at the Mass. Military Reservation (MMR)/Camp Otis on Cape Cod will be held Nov. 12-14. No hunting will be permitted on Saturday, Nov. 15, because of a military training exercise.

There is a limit of 600 hunters allowed on the base at one time, and all should be registered with the MassWildlife Southeast District to hunt there.

For information, call [phone].

Rick Eggleston can be reached by e-mail at [e-mail].