The abstract artist did not let a successful career in journalism get in the way of her true passion, art. Or is it that she doesn’t let art get in the way of her writing?
Read moreRosa Vera: Painting Narrative Paths to Peace
When hearing about immigration, the word “crisis” comes to mind. Perhaps it’s because so many people are migrating everywhere in the world now. It seems like a new humanitarian predicament, but migrations have occurred in every age and time stirring the human population pot and generating conflict as well as new traditions and cuisines. In the late 1800’s for instance, the multinational population of Peru was transformed by an huge inflow of Chinese indentured laborers.
Read moreShelley Lowenstein Links Science and Art Through Paint
Albert Einstein said that mystery is at “the cradle of true art and true science” In her new solo show opening April 6 at Washington, DC’s Touchstone Gallery “(as far as we know),” artist Shelley Lowenstein explores the mystery and wonder of the human beta cell, a major force essential to human life, and sometimes a victim of autoimmune attack.
Read moreClaudia Samper Mixed Media Stories
Argentinian-born Claudia Samper reminisces on her early life in Buenos Aires. “As a youngster I was always drawing and creating things with my hands,” she recalls. “By the time I entered the university I didn't have many choices in Buenos Aires except for traditional career paths--medicine, education, law, etc. We of course did have a wonderful art institute, but it never crossed my mind to pursue art then.” The one track that suited her the most was architecture. After completing that 6-year degree program, she had acquired a solid base in both the technical and the art spheres of the curriculum.
Read moreJeanne Garant: Parallel Paintings
Touchstone oil painter Jeanne Garant paints abstractly. For a painter like Jeanne, abstract means to focus on a particular shape and color noticed at any given moment and then to discard the rest. She draws from the jumble of life rather than trying to capture it all in a photographic or three-dimensional way. Garant's attitude in creating the flat or one-perspective paintings, 275 Stripes, mirrors that of New England painter Milton Avery. “I try to construct a picture in which shapes, spaces, colors, form a set of unique relationships, independent of any subject matter. At the same time I try to capture and translate the excitement and emotion aroused in me by the impact with the original idea.”
Read moreLisa Tureson: Curiosity ---> Exploration ---> Creativity
Lisa Tureson
Once Lisa Tureson decided to leave her career in the insurance industry, there was no stopping her from exploring and learning about the many techniques, materials and tools artists use to express themselves. Actually, she probably always did have a curious and exploratory bent. At age four Lisa often watched her artist-teacher mother at the easel. Thusly inspired, her first murals were created out of her mother’s lip stick on her sisters’ bedroom walls. Whether she was chastised for her use of the lipstick medium or praised for her ambitious wall-size art expression, this “project” proved a precursor to the large paintings in her present day solo exhibit Scribbles: An Urban Art Expression at Touchstone Gallery during March 2017.
Read moreMary Ott: The Pull of Metallics
Mary Ott working in the Montgomery College Print Studio, Silver Spring MD
Mary Ott’s February solo exhibit “Metallics: Paintings and Prints” at Touchstone Gallery features artwork that includes copper, silver and gold-colored paints and inks. Mary’s techniques, whether on a smooth canvas base or a unique and textured paper, result in images of nature that seem influenced by the Zen of Japanese art, an art aimed at uncovering the essence of the object under scrutiny. In Mary’s work, grasses are singled out and isolated from complexities of a natural biosphere; then presented in a simplified space, elucidating the purity of seemingly simple life forms--forms often forgotten in our contemporary rough-and-tumble mechanical world.
Read moreSteve Alderton’s Fleeting Memories
Steve Alderton
Steve Alderton, in his third series “Memoryscapes: Blurry Lines III,” continues an exploration of landscape memories as viewed through the prism of time. In this final component, Alderton pushes his works until they become abstract and the focus is contemplative in nature. His acrylic paintings describe landscape qualities that are “felt” rather than defined as specific representational scenes our eyes see in the real world of land, sea or sky.
Read moreElaine Florimonte: Painting Layered Metaphors
Elaine Florimonte
Elaine Florimonte’s day often starts out over coffee in the morning while she touches base with some of her high school art students. They come in early to talk about the parallels between art and life and what to do when something goes wrong in a painting—philosophical stuff. “It’s a privilege to be present in their lives at these moments when 15 to 18-year olds are forming their identities,” she muses, “and I stay connected to about four or five each year, following their progress through college.” In the classroom Elaine teaches techniques and various media while coaching them through the standard processes of making art. Sometimes she picks up the brush and paints on her own canvas to get a point across, a technique she learned from one of her own teachers during her high school days. It was this particular teaching model that convinced her to study art and then become an art teacher herself.
Read morePat Williams: Coaxing Abstracts From Reality
Pat Williams
"I enjoy painting more than anything else I’ve ever done, and I’ve done quite a few things," says Pat Williams, a native of North Carolina who now lives in Falls Church, Virginia. This is quite a remarkable statement coming from a person who majored in engineering and spent most of her career working for electrical cooperatives and other energy companies.
Read moreOn Being Nomadic: Gale Wallar
Gale Wallar 3 blog
For Gale, who was born into a military family, being nomadic was the norm. That, and a rich exposure to art, architecture and history. Art is the course that Gale set for herself as a child and she has stuck to it during some circuitous turns and long journeys. After achieving a BFA in painting and printmaking, she freelanced in Washington D.C. and some of her political cartoons were published in the Washington Post.
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