MissouriLife Articles

Touch the Paper

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 15:05:20 GMT

*By Kristy G. Flick* Lois Jacobs loves working with her hands. Her love of working with paper began in her preschool years when her mother provided her with scissors, glue, magazines, and boxes. She worked for days creating paper designs and little paper worlds that she kept in a shoe box. “Even though I love to draw, paint, weave, and make stuff, I’ve tried to concentrate on my papers,” she explains. Lois likes working with paper best because she can make paper come alive by making it two and three-dimensional, and she wants others to touch her art. “Paper can stand on its own with things I embed, or it can be the groundwork to another piece of art,” she says. Although she was training for nursing, Lois discovered her true passion for art while in college. She now teaches her love of art to elementary students at Valley Park, near St Louis. “I go to bed at night thinking about an interesting idea. Then I get up early in the morning and try it!” See this Best of Missouri Hands member’s art at www.relatedbits.com.

Illness Promted Art

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 15:01:48 GMT

*By Kristy G. Flick* Denis Smith grew up in the state of Oregon where dramatic natural landscapes abound. She moved to Missouri to pursue degrees in journalism, advertising, and graphics. After college, she settled in Union. Her motivation and inspiration came from her high school art teacher in Oregon. “She told us to never stop experimenting and investigating,” Smith says, “I took that to heart and love to try different mediums and techniques.” Her artistic pursuits had to be put on hold in 1982 when her oldest child developed leukemia. She had to concentrate on earning a paycheck to pay for mounting medical bills. She worked for several companies as an art and graphics director and quickly adapted to graphic design using computers. “This was a major turning point in my skill development,” she recalls. “I was one of the first in the St. Louis area to learn and use the computer for design.” Since her child’s recovery, she has become a freelance artist and began her own business known as OptiMax Design. Her strongest and most interesting area of business has become large format scanning of original artwork and giclee prints. Giclee is a method of making fine art prints using a seven-color archival inkjet process. Her watercolor paintings are mostly still lifes and natural scenes and are geared toward those who like dramatic color and symmetry. She draws inspiration today from her own garden, wildlife, and landscapes. Her jewelry line uses intense colors and color variances. It’s rewarding when someone chooses her artwork to enhance his or her surroundings or appearance, Denise says. See this Best of Missouri member's art at www. optimaxdesign.com.

The Stork Brought Paints

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:59:42 GMT

Veronica Greene's paintings on fabric and silk were born from her own pregnancy and a furniture-painting class. Born and raised in Mexico City, she discovered her talent and interest in art while expecting her first child. “I was taking a furniture painting class,” Veronica says. “I felt like I needed a hobby after I had my baby.” She bought an art book and made copies of the masters in miniature, which she compares to having private art classes with Monet and Van Gogh. While experimenting with various art forms, Veronica realized she possessed a flair for working with fabrics. She loves hand-painting on silk, which she has been doing for more than five years, and dying her fabric to create one-of-a-kind specialties. Veronica likes the feel of fabric texture and especially enjoys seeing her fabric art worn. “The idea of creating a unique piece to wear thrills me,” Veronica says. “I create pieces that are out of the ordinary that will make a woman feel special wearing it.” Veronica, who lives in St. Louis, seeks inspiration from “nature, a movie, my children, anything that helps me feel better about life and will help others, too,” she says. _See this Best of Missouri Hands member’s art at the Festival of Arts in St. Charles, the Painted Daisy in Eureka, and the gift shop at the St. Louis Artists’ Guild. Email her at sgreene@sbcglobal.net._ *-By Kristy G. Flick* April 2006

A First Love

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:48:07 GMT

Linda J. Green/Metzler paints the beauty and wonder of the Missouri countryside and its colorful, distinctive towns with her watercolor skills. She loved painting as a child, and her parents gave her the encouragement she needed. “They placed a high value on artistic pursuit,” Linda says, and they hung prints of great artwork throughout their home. Before college, Linda took drawing and painting classes at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, her hometown. “That early exposure to great painting made an indelible impression on me,” she says. Linda earned her Bachelors of Fine Art in Painting in Claremont, California, and studied at the Art Students League of New York. She also traveled and painted oils and watercolors in England, where the scenic landscapes inspired her. She eventually settled in St. Louis in the early 1970s and developed Green, Inc. Design Communications, which provided graphics and marketing services to companies in the St. Louis area. After thirty years, Linda returned to her first love: painting. She also makes fine art notecards and decoupage tops for small boxes. _See this Best of Missouri Hands member’s watercolors and Giclee fine art reproductions at www.highplainsart-design.com._ *By Kristy G. Flick* April 2006

Still Life in Photo

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 02:42:44 GMT

Deb Roberts's photography art is a part of her, and it’s starting to click. In 2005, she won an Honorable Mention in the International Photography Awards Competition in the Fine Art in Still Life category. “The conception of each photograph begins with a rudimentary element,” says Deb, who resides in Columbia. She tries to find the texture, color, shape, or design that she sees in her mind’s eye. Then, she sets the stage by making the subject an “integral part of its setting.” Her focus is on the arrangement, the light, and the experience. If the lighting is not right, she will wait patiently until it is. What she sees through her lens becomes the photograph, without computer manipulation. Some of Deb’s photos find themselves incorporated into an art quilt, most of which include some element of her photography. While her art quilts are magnificent, Deb’s passion is photography. _See this Best of Missouri Hands member’s work at Columbia Art League and Bluestem Missouri Crafts in Columbia._ *—Kristin Crowe* June 2006

Trees Take Flight

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 02:41:53 GMT

John Freise makes wood take flight by carving birdsnear De Soto. The river in St. Francois State Park, located near the home he shares with his wife Susan, provides inspiration. The black, white, and orange plumage of the American avocet makes that shorebird his favorite. He also enjoys carving water birds, such as the herons and egrets, that he watched as a child on Missouri’s waterways. His backyard birds include crows, bluebirds, and doves. Most of John’s birds are oil painted and made from white cedar. “Old-time carvers on the east coast used white cedars,” John says. “White cedar has a really good grain. The grain will actually look like a feather pattern.” John also has a line of birds carved from reclaimed walnut, such as an 1826 log home in Moniteau County. These walnut trees were growing in the mid-1700s during Lewis and Clark’s journey through Missouri. These birds are waxed, emphasizing the wood. It will be ten years before John can retire from his job as a Public Projects Coordinator for the Union Pacific Railroad and carve fulltime. But that’s okay. “I'm still new to this stuff,” he says. _See this Best of Missouri Hands and Missouri Wildlife Artists Society member’s art at www.bestofmissourihands.com._ *—Kristin Crowe* June 2006

Rebel Quilter

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 02:28:22 GMT

*By Kristin Crowe* Susan Leslie Lumsden knew at an early age she wanted to be an artist; she just had to discover what kind of art to create. Although that process took trial and error, she now makes quilts in Thayer. Susan never had an interest in regular quilting, and even tried sculpting for three years. Then she saw a book about using quilting techniques to make wearable art. “That was the first time I had really gotten that my skills in sewing could be used to create art,” she says, having honed those skills since the age of five. She makes wall quilts using a bull’s-eye block as a template. In the concept stage, Susan plays with the colors associated with certain concepts. When she places the quilt squares on her flannel wall, it is the “first time the quilt really comes to life.” While she may play with the arrangement of the quilt, typically “the quilt starts talking,” and then Susan just listens and puts it together. _View this Best of Missouri Hands artist’s work at www.rebelquilter.com._ June 2006

Wonder Under Bark

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:58:08 GMT

    Vic Barr has been making things out of wood nearly all his life. As a child, he hammered nails in planks of wood and helped to install flooring. He has always had an artistic flair and tried his hand at various art techniques, such as drawing, painting, and clay sculpting as hobbies.
    But his most satisfying medium was wood. He found he had an innate talent for forming clean lines and subtle curves in wood. He also had a curiosity about the wonder hidden beneath the bark of a tree, and he enjoyed making treasure chests for family and friends.
    The goal of his art is to become symbiotic with nature. “Wood is spectacular on its own,” he says. Therefore, he does not stain, color, cover, disguise, or mass-produce his pieces. “The wood should express itself and the artist,” he says.
    Barr says, “I am my happiest in my workshop — designing, cutting, fitting, finishing, and enhancing the beauty of woods of
the world.”
    See this Best of Missouri Hands at www.matanda.com or at Backstreet Gallery in Kirkwood.

—By Kristy G. Flick

February 2006