Rita Dawley has been a member of the Norwich Arts Center (previously the Norwich Arts Council) for nearly three decades. Every couple of years, an artist member gets the chance to exhibit a solo show in the NAC gallery.

When it came time for Dawley’s turn this year, though, she wasn’t envisioning a one-person exhibition. She wanted instead to feature her pieces along with the work of a group of artist friends that has often traveled together and created art on those sojourns.

This crew, which Eileen Kenny describes in the exhibition as “a wonderfully artistic version of the ‘Ya-Ya’ sisterhood,” has trekked to Provence, to Block Island, to Maine and beyond.

In the past few years, though, they lost two members. Pam Nelson died in 2011 at age 74, and Janice Di Battista died in 2013 at age 73. Both battled cancer.

The show at the Norwich Arts Center honors and celebrates Nelson and Di Battista — and the friendship among all the women.

Dawley says of the show, “I wanted to have us all together one more time.”

She calls this a last hurrah of sorts, and she knew that another gallery wouldn’t ask the pals to exhibit together simply because “they don’t know our history together.”

And what a history it has been, full of trips, art and joy.

That all comes together in the exhibition titled “A Traveling Group of Friends.” It features the art of Dawley, Di Battista, Nelson, Kenny, Sadie DeVore, Denette Dasinger and Elaine Steinhilber. The women have had long careers in the area, not only having seen their work displayed in gallery and museum shows, but also having taught art in public schools and given art lessons at various venues. Most of them met each other through art, with some of them first connecting at a drawing class at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum.

The walls are a testament to their journeys together. Di Battista’s oil painting, “Gay Head Cliffs, Martha’s Vineyard,” hangs near Nelson’s watercolor, “Monument Valley.” Provence produced an array of artistic riches, from Dasinger’s depiction of an olive grove to Dawley’s mixed-media pieces inspired by their travels.

Dasinger, of Niantic, says these friendships were “really special for me because we all had this common interest. Besides painting, we just had a good time together.”

When even two of these women chat about the paintings hanging on the NAC walls, things inevitably turn to reminiscing — and laughing.

In Provence, DeVore, who lives in Mystic, recalls, everyone was happy painting at the medieval farmhouse where they were staying (“It looked more like a gothic church than it did like a farmhouse. It was big stone — really like a fortress,” she says). But DeVore finally convinced them to drive out of town, and she references a Dasinger painting of the gently rolling hills they saw from the roadway.

Dawley, of Unvasville, interjects, “I want to tell (the reporter) about how many stone walls we ran into (with) the girls driving.”

They both burst into giggles.

“The stone walls are so little, and they would back up and there would be a stone wall,” Dawley says.

She and DeVore go back and forth about whether those were technically low stone walls or high curbs and then chuckle about how one of the women covered up some accident-induced scratches on the rental car with a black magic marker.

Stories weave in and out of conversation. DeVore recalls the group taking a walk right after sunset, from Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts, to another island.

“Do you remember walking at night at Cuttyhunk, and the sky was all turquoise and the land was black?” DeVore asks Dawley. “We’re getting each other out into nature. It’s not (like) you’re by yourself. You’re experiencing things that are new. ... I wouldn’t have walked down that hill by that oyster-growing place (by myself).”

Being together had definite artistic benefits, as they discovered things from each other.

“That was one of the best parts of it, all the things you learn along the way,” DeVore says. “Even here in this show, I can see compositions and things I envy.”

When asked if they all still go out together on trips, Dawley says, “Not as much since we lost the girls.”

“That was a loss for us that two of them passed on,” says Dasinger. “It hasn’t been quite the same.”

Indeed, memories of DiBattista and Nelson seem to loom large in the exhibition and in their friends’ thoughts.

Dawley says Nelson was “our mother of everything. I remember going to Greece, and I had the worst stomachache ... I wanted to lay on the floor (of the plane), and you can’t.”

Nelson came to her rescue by giving her some ginger she had with her.

“She said, ‘Take this — this will help you.’ And it sure did.”

Di Battista was more of a spiritual leader, DeVore says.

“When she showed up in a room, she was so beautiful, everybody stopped to look,” Dawley says.

“And wanted to talk to her,” DeVore adds.

Dawley agrees, “She was a wonderful person to talk to.”

In text she wrote to accompany the exhibition, Kenny captures the spirit of this group this way: “It may not have been due solely to traveling together that these friendships formed. Artists’ interactions often begin with a shared creative connection, an understanding and acceptance of diversity, personal evolution and individual eccentricities. However, it was through the trips, the planning, the packing, the getting there, the living together and their work, that they began to really know and appreciate each other, friendships were cemented, and the fun began!”

If you go

What: “A Traveling Group of Friends” exhibit

Where: The Norwich Arts Center Gallery, 60 Broadway, Norwich

When: Through Oct. 29; noon-4 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. and by appointment

Call: (860) 848-9630