i-witness review on ArtShare

Report by Barb Rehg, Photos by Callahan Pope McDonough

Sunday, August 19, WCAGA met for an Art Share. This particular time, we decided to focus on viewing work created during the Drawing Marathon sessions. 

The following bits are, I hope, an accurate distillation of the observations made by some of the artists regarding the work during the August 19th Art Share.

Chris Lewis started the afternoon with a wonderful work she created from an old photograph of her mother holding her as an infant. While she could have simply rendered an exact duplicate of this wonderful sentiment, instead Chris presented us with an abstracted dreamscape which only served to focus our attention more securely to the image. The backdrop of brown and white paper were a stark contrast to the lovingly rendered image of mother and child. She took a specific photo of her mother and herself as an infant and instead created a memory we could all get lost in.

Susan Ker Seymer’s drawings presented three versions of the same images. Susan’s work seems to always be a search to find an elegant simplification of form. Each drawing in the progression was made with fewer marks but somehow said more. 

I used to always hear professors expound on the benefits of drawing, over and over again, the same image. How it taught the mind to find the true essence of a form and how the mind could always find new ways to portray the same forms. Seeing Susan’s three drawings proved them ‘right’. 

Loretta Paraguassu loves creating visual imagery and the written word. The drawing she presented showed a marriage of the two. The images drew one in and once there, the viewer stayed to read the words. The lines used for the images were lyrical and calligraphic in nature and the words written under each image were not a story so much as words chosen to convey the mood created by the line drawings. 

Kathy Meliopoulos has been working in her studio, creating drawings based on photographs she has taken or found. She explains that the photos are merely inspirational and are meant for information of form. Kathy brought a number of very small images that were created from just one photo. While her images are representational they go beyond reproduction of the photo and become creative compositions that have endless variations possible.

Barb Rehg started by sharing the first drawing she created during a session that took place at Ann Rowles studio. This drawing and all the others she brought, are inspired by the work she saw in the studios she visited. The final work becomes a combination of what she saw and her specific fascination with certain aspects of their work. Mostly, they are what she finds beautiful in the work other’s are doing.

Jane Jaskevich ended the afternoon by sharing a sculpture from her most recent body of work. The polished head of a man was created in a unique stone that had these wonderful lines and bands of color. The way Jane chose to carve the stone enhanced the features of the man’s head, making it It look like a drawing done in 3D. 

B Rehg