Celebration of Fine Art

Every year an eclectic mix of “show” dogs accompany their artist parents to the Celebration of Fine Art. Though our version of show dogs may not be on par with the Westminster Kennel Club’s, we love these little characters all the same. Since many of them report to work on an almost daily basis, we thought we would take a moment to formally introduce a few of them.

Matisse – Bruce Marion’s 7-year-old Pekingese. Bruce said Matisse essentially grew up at the show.

Zipper – Belongs to Sue Averell and can usually be found perched in front of one of her city scapes.

Tinker – Tom Lucas, western and wildlife painter, is often found with Tinker perched on his arm.

Lucy – Is Shanna Kunz’s “studio dog.” Though Lucy is still just a puppy, the sweet girl is usually parked under Shanna’s easel.

Emma – Ken Newman’s yellow lab, when not playing fetch in the garden with the other artists, she rests on her special platform and watches Ken sculpt.

Bandi and Meme - Randy Berkeley and Robin Branham met their rescued dogs at the show (running around outside the tent) and have been together ever since.

More dogs to come…

Last week’s blog post touched on the art of abstract, some of the common misconceptions that surround it, and why it is such a freeing art form. This week, three more artists at the Celebration of Fine Art artists shared their thoughts on the art form.

Adolfo Antonio Girala:
Q. What is your background? Have you always worked in abstract?
A. I’m self taught. For me painting has been sort of like a gift, but I worked as a technician for 17 years. I’ve been doing this since 2000. I’ve always painted fish and that brought in some abstract. (Though he doesn’t label his work abstract – it’s just what he knows.) I love the ocean. I’m from Cuba and like the underwater colors and shapes, so it’s in a lot of my work.

Q. What about your art resonates most with your buyers?
A. The colors for sure. That Zen feeling. It’s very restful.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your work?
A. When I get up in the morning after I left something drying at night and coming to see what happened to it. And being surprised.

Q. What is a common misconception you’ve come across surrounding abstract?
A. Being an outsider I never really focus on that, but many people do think abstract is just throwing paint out, but you have to have an understanding of light and dark and depth. Abstract work takes as much work as any other work out there.

Q. There are many forms of abstract, what do you classify your work as?
A. To me it is just what I do, I don’t really have a name for it.

Robin Branham:
Q. What is your background? Have you always worked in abstract?
A. I’ve always done abstract art. I learned how I didn’t want to paint in college, but everything I learned about painting I learned from my father. People think there are no rules, but there are so many rules in abstract.

Q. What about your art resonates most with your buyers?
A. The texture or the fact that it’s really different or unique.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your work?
A. It’s the process that does it for me. You do all these experiments, go to bed and wake up and see what happened in your process. I like to invent different ways to paint. It’s the mystery…you don’t know what you are going to get.

Q. What is a common misconception you’ve come across surrounding abstract?
A. That there are no rules and that you just splat paint down. I would say it’s more difficult than many forms of traditional work. You have to figure out what it’s going to look like.

Q. There are many forms of abstract, what do you classify your work as?
A. It’s just what I do, but I don’t have a term for it. I think it’s really important to experiment and find your own way. That’s my strongest belief…go somewhere else every time you paint.

Jossy Lownes:
Q. What is your background? Have you always worked in abstract?
A. I started drawing academically because in the beginning you want to draw something that people know what it is and let it evolve from there. You have to know the basics and the more you know the better you are able to do abstract work.

Q. What about your art resonates most with your buyers?
A. I think it resonates with buyers because I am doing universal themes of people, emotions and relationships.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your work?
A. What I’m enjoying is having a consistent theme which deals with relationships, but also deals with the expectations we have in life that sometimes work and sometimes don’t. When they don’t work, a person has to be totally honest in their solutions to life and its problems. That’s what my work means to me. And all of these groups of people (in her pieces) are indications of the commonality that we have as humans…we are all in this together. I’m enjoying having a specific theme to express in different ways. Though the theme is consistent, the materials and colors I choose are always different.

Q. What is a common misconception you’ve come across surrounding abstract?
A. Abstract is a huge word. Any painting is abstract, because it’s not the real thing. To me non-representational is a more fitting word.

Q. There are many forms of abstract, what do you classify your work as?
A. Right now I’m calling it contemporary symbolism. I’m trying to come up with words that are not so easily misconstrued (like the term abstract).

There’s a lot of misconception surrounding abstract art. For some it may conjure up images of Pablo Picasso’s infamous Cubist pieces, while others may instantly think Henri Matisse and Fauvism, and indeed there are a few out there who think it’s the work of a crafty child unleashing his fingers on a canvas. In fact abstract is often used as a blanket term to describe work that may actually fall into nonfigurative, nonobjective or nonrepresentational art.

There are three art movements that contributed to the development of abstract art: Romanticism, Impressionism and Expressionism. And for many artists who moved into this art form it represented independence and a sense of freedom. This is also true for several of the artists at the Celebration of Fine Art.

“When I hit my 40s I wanted something that reflected more of my personality and what was in my heart,” said Bruce Marion. “So I started putting paint on the canvas and let it just happen rather than forcing it to become something specific.”

He admits his initial attempts aren’t always a win, but part of the journey has been letting go of the control and allowing his art to flow from him.

“All of my paintings evolve on the canvas,” Bruce said. “I don’t work from preliminary sketches or have a visual picture of what it’s going to be. That’s how I approach all of these – in the moment and improvisational. Sometimes they fail miserably, so I go back over them.”

Prior to moving into more of the abstract realm Bruce was a realist, painting magazine covers and pieces for corporate packaging. But to him even that had an element of abstract.

“When you get down to it, all painting is abstract,” he said. “We’re all putting paint on canvas…none of it is real.”

And just like other fine art forms, there is a lot that goes into consideration when it comes to this style – composition elements, color choices, and classic art and design principles. Emotion is also a major component. Not just the emotion imparted by the artist, but also what it evokes in the viewer or collector.

For Penny Benjamin Peterson abstract is the art of mastering all of these elements without over analyzing. She delicately walks the line, allowing emotion to be her guiding principle.

“I don’t generally sketch out what I’m going to do,” she said. “Usually I have a bit of an idea even if it’s just the colors I want to use or sometimes I have a title in mind that makes a certain statement. But I don’t over analyze where a certain square goes or a circle goes. If I feel it’s slightly off where it needs to be it just adds to the layers and the design element if I need to move it slightly.”

Like Bruce, Penny started out in more traditional art forms, but moved naturally into abstract once she started creating collage pieces. Today she refers to her work as more nonrepresentational because it doesn’t depict any particular object being abstracted – it’s more about the colors and shapes.

“For me it’s more of an emotional connection,” Penny said. “My strengths are in color and design and that’s what my work is really about. It makes a statement and my clients generally have an emotional connection to the work they buy.”