Arts Tour: Quebec City

April 2008 | BY Hilary Nangle | Issue 61 | NO COMMENTS

: Chateau Frontenac sits like a castle on a high bluff in the heart of Vieux Quebec.

Mention Quebec City, and the response is often a swoon-worthy sigh. This 400-year-old French microcosm in eastern Canada blends Old World romance with new school verve, European flair with American style, small-town charm with urban sophistication. The result not only works; it shines.

The only fortified city north of Mexico, Quebec City crowns Cap Diamant, a cliff-edged promontory rising 320 feet over a bend in the St. Lawrence River. Recognizing the site’s defensive perks, explorer Samuel de Champlain founded New France here on July 3, 1608. Natural defenses augmented with walls and fortifications worked until 1763, when the English ultimately prevailed. Despite efforts to eradicate its French culture and language, Quebec has clung to both.

Quebec City reveres its past but doesn’t wallow in it. It keeps reinterpreting itself and evolving. The blending of centuries is especially evident with this year’s 400th anniversary celebration.

The city’s architectural and cultural mélange is best appreciated on foot. Begin on Battlefields Park on the Plains of Abraham, home to the Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec, the fine arts museum that includes its original Neoclassical building, an adjacent former city prison, and the Grand Hall, a contemporary glass-and-granite construction that unites all three. Continue down Grand Allée, sometimes referred to as the city’s little Champs élysées, where music pulses from the street-facing discos and sidewalk cafes.

Both the Grand Allée and the 21st century end at the ancient walls protecting the World Heritage Site of Vieux Quebec (Old Quebec). On the other side of the St. Louis Gate, horse-drawn carriages clipclop along the puzzle of narrow streets framed by 17th- and 18th-century stone buildings capped with steeply pitched roofs.

Vieux Quebec is divided into two sections, Haute-Ville (Upper Town) and Basse-Ville (Lower Town). Haute-Ville’s Rue St.-Louis ends at the Dufferin Terrace, a clifftop boardwalk overlooking Basse-Ville’s Quartier Petit-Champlain. The nearby Vieux-Port (Old Port), the historic center of the city’s maritime heritage, is now home to the Musée de la Civilisation. Sprinkled throughout are galleries and shops. Steep roads, steeper stairs and a cliffscaling funicular connect Hauteand Basse-Ville.

Lording over Quebec City is the Chateau Frontenac, a castle hotel that’s hosted rock stars, presidents and kings. Its Galerie d’Art du Chateau Frontenac, with a selection of works by nearly 100 top-tier Quebec artists, is a fine place to begin a Vieux Quebec arts tour. From here, cross Place d’Armes, where armies once paraded, to Rue du Trésor, a pedestrian alley that doubles as an outdoor art gallery. Then descend via funicular to Petit- Champlain, the cobblestone street tucked beneath the cliffs.

Many of the historic buildings lining Petit-Champlain are owned by Quartier Petit-Champlain, a co-op credited with transforming the area from a slum slated for demolition to an arts-oriented, history-infused shopping district. Near the foot of the street is a co‑op-sponsored trompe l’oeil mural that looks through the building’s wall, providing a time-travel peek at life inside.

Among the boutiques and galleries on the narrow street is Sculpteur Flamand. Founding co-op member and self-taught woodworker Alain Flamand carves traditional scenes and characters—the woodsmen, boatmen, fiddlers and trappers who helped build the city. Contrast his sculptures and reliefs with turned bowls, jewelry boxes, carved birds and other fine works crafted by the 65 Quebec artisans represented by Boutique Oh! Bois Dormant.

Wander into Transparence, a glass gallery with an emphasis on thermoformed pieces, or over to Pauline Pelletier’s eponymous shop. Porcelain specialist Pelletier is renowned for her smoke-fired cats and fractured pieces. She makes, breaks, then reconstructs forms, often augmenting them with copper fixtures, electro-plated animals or gold-luster porcelain fruits. Nearby, jeweler Louis Perrier operates two shops, one selling his work, the other representing up-and-coming artisans.

Across from the funicular base, adjacent to the ominously named Casse-Cou (Breakneck) stairs, is Jean Vallieres’ Verrerie la Mailloche, where he demonstrates traditional glass blowing techniques. An upstairs gallery sells pieces crafted here. Near the top of Casse-Cou, Alliage shimmers with contemporary metal craft. Alana Baird’s tin fish swim in the windows, sunlight reflecting off their gills and dappling Jean Bélanger’s glass-and-metal tables.

Return to the funicular base, and walk down Sous-le-Fort, turning left on Notre-Dame to Place-Royale, the original site of New France. Jean-Francoin Dugal uses traditional wooden joinery—no screws or nails, simply mortise, tenon and dovetails— to create his elegant, ergonomic rocking chairs. Among the 20 artists also exhibiting at Dugal is jeweler Brigitte Perrier, Dugal’s wife and Louis Perrier’s daughter.

Just after the square is Boutique Métiers d’Art du Québec, showing works by more than 100 members of the Arts and Crafts Council of Quebec. Venture into the back room to view such eye-catching pieces as éric Tardif ‘s steamed wood birds, Jacinthe Bruneau’s figures or Marie-Ange Samon’s spiritual vessels. Don’t miss the trompe l’oeil mural depicting Quebec’s historic figures on the gallery’s exterior wall.

Cross Rue Cede la Montagne and wrap around into the Vieux-Port via Rue de Sault-au-Matelot. It would be easy to spend the better part of a day visiting Les Galeries d’Art Beauchamp, Marc and Claudette Beauchamp’s cluster of six galleries representing more than 140 established and emerging artists.

Especially worth a look are Galerie d’Art Beauchamp et Beauchamp and Galerie d’Art Bel Art, sharing a building on Rue de Sault-au-Matelot and Cede la Montagne; be sure to visit the lower-level vault. On the far end of Rue de Saultau-Matelot is the studio of Guy Levesque, who uses a Middle Ages molding technique to craft leather masks, many inspired by the commedia dell’arte.

Turn left on Rue St.-Paul and meander through the neighborhood’s antique shops and galleries, progressing through the centuries by visiting both Maison Dambourg Antiquités, with a fine selection of Quebec folk art, and Lacerte Arte Contemporain, a highly respected contemporary art gallery.

St.-Paul exits the Vieux-Port and morphs into Boulevard Charest Est, which slices through the heart of Quebec’s trendiest neighborhood, edgy Nouvo Saint-Roch. Equally edgy is Centre Materia, a juried craft exhibition and installation center. “The space is dedicated to promoting artists who push boundaries,” says director Marianne Thibeault. “We look for technique and knowhow, but it’s very important that the works be a new interpretation.”

From 1608′s New France in the New World to 2008′s new interpretations in Nouvo Saint-Roch, Quebec City has kept its heart, without selling its soul. Exclusive quadricentennial exhibits and events marry traditional culture with 21st-century technology, and hint that visionaries already have ideas for the next 100 years. Imagine that.

Arts Abroad: England

April 2008 | BY The AmericanStyle Staff | Issue 61 | NO COMMENTS

: England’s Coast-to-Coast route crosses the country at its narrowest point, passing through the Lake District along the way.

We call it hiking. The Brits call it rambling. It amounts to the same thing: taking off into the countryside to breathe fresh air, build endurance and enjoy the beauties of nature. And if you get it right by doing it wrong, you can add art to these pleasures.

Rambler par excellence Alfred Wainwright charted a 192-mile route that crosses England at its narrowest point. It starts in the Lake District, crosses the Pennines, cuts through the Yorkshire moors and ends at Robin Hood’s Bay.

Wainwright’s route skips the little town of Grasmere—he liked to gamely press on. We, however, felt that nine miles was sufficient after two 15-mile days, a treacherously steep descent on slippery slate, and a thorough soaking in a mountain stream. Besides, Grasmere is where Wordsworth walked with his sister, Dorothy, admiring nature and jotting verses. A simple tombstone behind the church marks his grave.

Limping into Grasmere, we discover another of the town’s draws: Heaton Cooper Studio, whose gallery brims with a mix of reproductions and originals by four generations of Coopers.

Prints of landscapes by Victorian watercolorist Alfred Heaton Cooper and his son, William Heaton Cooper, mingle with bold contemporary oils by William’s son, Julian, a rock climber concerned over the effects man is having on the planet. Stoneware by Julian’s sister, Otalia Johnson, fills a set of shelves while, spotted throughout the gallery, bronze figurative statues attest to the talents of her and Julian’s mother, Ophelia Gordon Bell.

In recent years, yet another generation has joined the ranks: Rebecca Heaton Cooper, whose fabric collages fill a corner. Her father, John, another son of William and Ophelia, has managed the business for 30 years.

Thus replenished, we tackle another day of natural beauty that brings us into the charming lake village of Patterdale, smack on Wainwright’s route but, because of that, booked solid. Seated high in a double-decker bus that tilts into the greenery at every curve of the narrow road, we travel about an hour to the market town of Penrith.

: A stop in Easington, on the east coast, brings visitors to Grinkle Lodge, co-owned by painter Janette Boskett.

The surprise pleasure here is Sarah Hiscoke, a fresh-faced, green-eyed mother of three who, with husband Dean, runs the Bank House bed and breakfast. Born and raised in the area, Sarah studied art in London and thought she would never look back. But then she decided to have a family. “In London you look out and see a brick wall,” she says, explaining their decision to relocate north. “Here, you look out and see a beautiful scene. It’s wonderful.”

One of the scenes is her own garden, which inspired Sarah to start painting the dynamic floral pastels that enliven the house. But her real love is stitching and embroidering fabric into panels that recall stained glass windows. During a lull between clearing breakfast dishes and preparing for new guests, she unfurls “Eve” and speaks passionately about the strength of women and their denigration in much of Western iconography. “Eve is holding all the sins of the world,” she says. “Other cultures have the same imagery, but Eve creates life and gets things moving.”

Back on the trail heading toward the moors, it is easy to see why the Hiscokes left the big city. For days, we walk through woods and along rushing streams, and through miles and miles of purple heather before spying the misty outline of the North Sea. Wainwright’s Coast-to-Coast officially ends at Robin Hood’s Bay, but the charming lodge we booked in the town’s “outskirts” turned out to be more than 20 miles away—a most auspicious mistake.

Set in a national park, Grinkle Lodge is the home, workplace, studio and gallery of Janette Boskett. She and her husband, Timothy, bought the Gothic-style Victorian home in 2001—a year after Janette, “a mature student and so very keen,” completed a three-year arts degree.

In one of the bedrooms, a mural fools us into thinking we are looking out through a columned balcony onto the North Sea. A mural by the kitchen tricks the eye into seeing a stable door with a friendly horse looking out. And throughout the stone house, Janette displays oil landscapes and still-lifes, often placing them in such a way that the paintings themselves become part of a lively vignette. A gentle, surreal humor pervades some of the works—”Primavera” features three daffodils whose stems coil like springs—and old-fashioned leather cases populate many of the still lifes.

Of all these, she most loves working with still lifes, while she finds the trompe l’oeil murals the hardest. “It’s wonderful to get the idea and it’s wonderful to start,” she says, sitting in the dairy-turned-studio at the back of the house. “And then it goes on and on, and you have to fiddle about to get the last bits right.”

But right she gets it—and by veering off the path, so did we.

Parting Shot: Masters of Illusion

April 2008 | BY The AmericanStyle Staff | Issue 61 | NO COMMENTS

: Ron Isaacs’ “Into the Garden” Photo by Geoff Carr

Seeing Ron Isaacs’ “Into the Garden,” a vibrant green dress adorned with foliage, you’d never guess that the only elements at work are birch plywood and paint. Isaacs joins two fellow Kentucky artists, Tom Pfannerstill and Frank Weisberg, as well as 20 other North American artists, in “Made to Deceive: The Art of Trompe l’Oeil,” on view through May 24 at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft. The show even features five works made from edible materials including butter, marzipan, sugar, chocolate and bread, taking the idea of optical illusions to a whole new level.

Arts Focus : Windows With a View

April 2008 | BY Margaret A. Haapoja | Issue 61 | NO COMMENTS

: A. Kimberlin Blackburn’s colorful “The Flower Farmer” is constructed of glass beads, acrylic and wire on wood.

Most of us get two or three weeks of vacation a year, and live for those brief periods of escape from daily life. But what if your daily life was a tropical paradise? For the four artists featured here, all residents of the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the view from their bedroom windows reveals blue ocean waters, banana trees and endless raw materials for their next masterpieces.

But relaxed living doesn’t mean that Kauai is lax when it comes to the arts—each of these artists also belongs to the Kauai Society of Artists (KSA), a supportive organization that sponsors juried exhibitions and workshops throughout the year. As painter and KSA board member Annabel Spielman says, “It was here in the islands that I got a good introduction into the ‘aloha’ spirit of art.”

: M. Lea Ingram’s vibrant quilts depict scenes from land and sea. “Ka’loko Mourning” is pictured here.

A. Kimberlin Blackburn isn’t an artist who restricts herself to one project at a time. Her studio, overlooking the farm that has been in her husband James’s family for three generations, is filled with materials ready for immediate use—sorted beads, wood cutouts, six paintings in process on the wall, a soft sculpture and a tabletop for collaging.

“Nature’s duality of beauty and devastation always compels me,” says the artist, who is best known for her bead sculptures. “The water moving through the land, nourishing, carving, flooding. I imagine the farmer as the heroine or hero nourishing generations of people.” Somewhat of a free spirit, Blackburn, who was born on Oahu, returned to Kauai from New Jersey with a graduate degree in studio art in 1979. Hiking provides inspiration and respite after she sits hunched over for hours in her studio. “It makes me want to create something in response to all that beauty,” she says. “I’m not a literal artist, so I’m not trying to make a flower the way a flower looks, but I want to be in the game. I want to play with the spirits.”

Because Blackburn loves Hawaii’s mix of cultures, the figures in her sculptures often have green or blue faces so that anyone can identify with them. “I am blessed to live in a place my ancestors traveled far to come to, a place that speaks to me with intense beauty and grace,” she says.

: Ray Nitta’s repertoire includes furniture, like this Japanese tansu.

Blackburn’s work is available stateside at Rupert Ravens Contemporary in Newark, N.J., or at Davison Arts in Kapaa, Kauai. Visit www.akimberlinblackburn.com for more information.

Annabel Spielman spent time in England and India before she married her husband, Stuart, in 1976 and followed his passion for warmer climates all the way to Hawaii. “I’ve lived on these islands for over thirty years,” she says, standing in her sun-splashed studio, “and I continue to find a source for inspiration everywhere I look. The color is so extravagant here. The flowers, the landscape and the people—I think my paintings will always have a Hawaiian point of view.”

: Regardless of their subjects, Annabel Spielman’s paintings always reflect her locale. “Banana Flower” depicts one of Spielman’s favorite plants.

Street scenes, ocean views and vignettes seen through her kitchen window are equally captivating for Spielman. She carries a camera, and sometimes uses a photo as her starting point. Landscapes and tropical foliage figure prominently in her work. The banana f lower is one of her favorites, for the unique way it thrusts out from beneath a huge clump of leaves. The flower and fruit develop so quickly that she can catch them looking very different after only a couple of days. Spielman experiments with a variety of mediums: intimate watercolors that are “more like embroidery,” expressive acrylics that “do a dance with the paint brush and the canvas,” and juicy, rich oils that “blend so successfully.”

Spielman’s work can be found at the Kilohana Gallery in Lihue and Aloha-N-Paradise in Waimea. Check out www.annabelspielmanpaintings.com for more information or to contact her.

Portfolio: Taking Turns

April 2008 | BY Karen S. Chambers | Issue 62 | NO COMMENTS

: Linda Fifield was inspired by her surroundings when she created “Landscape #4, Autumn,” last year.

It’s a “whopper.” No, not the Burger King sandwich or a tall tale. It’s what Jack and Linda Fifield affectionately call the 4-foot-high wood vessel sitting in their living room. About a third of it has been covered in tiny, vibrantly colored glass beads. That’s Linda’s contribution to the collaboration; it’s taken her about a year to get this far. Her woodturner-sculptor-dentist husband Jack made the vessel.

This is their most ambitious collaboration to date, not counting rearing two children, planning a new home on a Kentucky mountaintop and creating a life centered on craft.

In some ways their story seems unlikely. Born in a Minneapolis suburb, Jack was destined for a professional career. Linda’s Appalachian childhood, as one of eight children, was rich with handmade works. They met in the early 1970s when Jack, who was a dentistry student at the University of Minnesota, came to Kentucky for a summer job. Jack and Linda fell in love with each other, and Jack also fell in love with Kentucky.

: Jack Fifield follows in the footsteps of his teacher Rude Osolnik with this “Natural Edge Bowl in Walnut,” created in 2007.

When he graduated from dental school in 1974, they married and lived in Wisconsin, where Jack set up his first practice. They returned to the Appalachian Mountains two years later, and Jack set up his current practice in McKee, Ky.

In 1974, Linda saw an exhibition of Native American baskets at Chicago’s Field Museum and was entranced. “The incredible baskets left me spellbound,” she says. “The similarity between finely twined baskets and the texture of beadwork intrigued me.”

Linda has never been a stranger to craft. The women in her family sewed, made quilts, crocheted laces and embroidered linens. “Creativity was an integral part of daily life,” she recalls. In her own home, she has added knitting, weaving and basket making to her repertoire.

Linda also taught herself twill weaving, which is the primary technique she uses in her current work. She threads tiny Czech glass beads onto nylon filaments that cross, making a net to encase a form. She used ceramic pots thrown by friends as her bases until she took up woodturning in 1994—enticed into the wood shop on Christmas morning by her husband.

She turns the smaller pieces, while Jack tackles the larger ones like the “whopper.” Her brightly colored and textured beadwork complements his polished organic wood forms.

Jack dates his interest in craft to his first practice in Wisconsin. He became acquainted with some “hippies who were making furniture and selling it in their own gallery.” Inspired, Jack took up woodworking in his spare time, making furniture and dulcimers. Linda’s 20th wedding anniversary gift to him—a lathe—led Jack to woodturning. “I found the lathe intriguing,” he explains. “It satisfies my immediate-gratification-type personality.”

With Berea College’s extensive craft program just 25 miles west of their home, Jack had the good fortune to study with Rude Osolnik. Like his teacher, Jack celebrates the nature of his material, turning green wood that has fallen naturally in the forest where the Fifields live. Also like his teacher, he often leaves a natural edge on his vessels.

Using stationary gouges and chisels, Jack works on a block of wood on the lathe, carving into it, hollowing it out, and leaving walls sometimes as thin as 1/8-inch. “It’s evolving as it’s revolving,” he says. He likens turning small hollow- form vessels to “doing a root canal in the back of the mouth,” since both require working in small spaces.

Beyond the many beautiful objects the Fifields have made, they’ve also created a life centered on their loves—craft, Kentucky and, of course, each other.

The Fifields’ work is available at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft’s gallery shop in Louisville, and will be exhibited June 21-Aug. 12 in a show at the Southern Highland Craft Guild’s Folk Art Center in Asheville, N.C. Linda is consistently represented by the Katie Gingrass Gallery at SOFA Chicago, and Jack’s vessels are carried by Blue Spiral 1 in Asheville.

Arts Travel: Craft at the Capital

February 2008 | BY Christine Kloostra | Issue 60 | NO COMMENTS

Collectors across the country have already made travel plans to be in Washington, D.C., April 11-13 for the Smithsonian Craft Show (which officially kicks off April 10), but there’s still time to get in on the James Renwick Alliance (JRA) Spring Craft Weekend 2008.

One of the nation’s premier craft events, the weekend includes a symposium led by Jane Milosch, curator of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, a gala dinner, and live and silent auctions.

At a brunch on April 13, the JRA will present its Distinguished Educators Honorees, Stuart Kestenbaum, Sharon Church and Jacquelyn Rice, who will speak about their work.

Proceeds from the event will help build the Renwick’s American craft collection and support the JRA. For more information visit www.jra.org or call 301-907-3888.

Arts Travel: Cut the Mustard

February 2008 | BY Christine Kloostra | Issue 60 | NO COMMENTS

A love-it-or-hate-it condiment, mustard seems an unlikely candidate for a festival, but for California’s Napa Valley it’s a natural complement to the region’s wine palette.

The Napa Valley Mustard Festival celebrates the growing season of wild mustard in the region’s vineyards Feb. 2-March 30.

With an obvious focus on food, including a mustard-making contest, the festival also celebrates mustard in art through a visual art competition, exhibition and silent auction. After the grand opening event, “Mustard Magic,” on Feb. 2, the exhibition will be on display at the St. Supéry Vineyards and Winery Feb. 9-March 30.

The festival also hosts a photography contest, and photographs of wild mustard will be offered for sale to guests at the festival’s closing event on March 29.

For more information visit http://mustardfestival.org

Arts Travel: Mapping Your Way

February 2008 | BY Christine Kloostra | Issue 60 | NO COMMENTS

: George Shove’s “London Map on a Glove” is part of the Walters Art Museum exhibition.

Given the prevalence of maps in Baltimore this spring, one thing is for certain: it won’t be difficult to navigate the city.

More than 20 arts organizations will take part in the Baltimore Festival of Maps, March 16-June 30. The festival will be held in conjunction with the exhibition “Maps: Finding Our Place in the World” at the Walters Art Museum.

Here are some highlights:

Artists Kianga Ford and Arnold Schalks reinvent the concept of the map with a new map of Baltimore, encouraging visitors to rethink the city in “Re-Mapping” at the Contemporary Museum.
The Historical Electronics Museum presents “Mapping with Radar,” a collection of maps showing topography, vegetation and land use in the last 50 years.
“Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square,” a site-specific installation in Mt. Vernon Place by students of the Maryland Institute College of Art.
An artist-in-residency program at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen that will result in a 25-square-foot mosaic map mural. For a complete list of events, visit www.baltimorefestivalofmaps.com.

Editor’s Note: Fee! Fie! Foe! Fowl!

February 2008 | BY Hope Daniels | Issue 60 | NO COMMENTS

: Mary Sprague’s “Egg Runner” is a chicken on a mission.

I‘ve never met Mary Sprague, but I think she’d be a most interesting person to live next-door to. For starters, there are her chickens. The 5-foot-high ones. The ones that strut, preen, seethe and stare at you with ancient eyes that say they’ve seen it all and aren’t going to let you get away with anything. Period.

Then there’s the cooperative artists loft in midtown St. Louis where Sprague lives and works. I could get used to that.

Finally, there’s Sprague herself: a 73-year-old contrarian wood sprite of a woman whose oeuvre includes works like “What a Person Would Look Like if She Moved to Missouri and Taught for 30 Years,” “Little Bomb in the Kitchen” and “Hen, Wet, Mad.”

What’s not to be intrigued by there? The daughter of a U.S. Coast Guard engineer, Sprague grew up in a variety of places, always near the water, and once told writer Susan Caba (who profiles the artist in this issue) that as a little girl, she wanted to be a seagull. Fortunately for us, she eventually gave up that ambition to become an artist instead. Her career as a painter, printer and ceramic artist spans five decades and includes some 24 solo exhibitions and a list of institutional collectors ranging from the St. Louis Art Museum to the Nanjing Museum of Art in China.

Sprague says that she doesn’t draw people, but I think arts critic Paul Friswold uncovered a deeper truth when he reviewed a show of her chickens at the Duane Reed Gallery last April for the St. Louis Riverfront Times. “Those are no chickens,” he wrote. “That’s Mary inside the plumage.”

Art and design is the feature focus in this issue of AmericanStyle, with an emphasis on the house as a blank canvas. For Eileen Tognini, creation starts with a 200-year-old farmhouse she sweeps clean once a year, filling it with artworks and furnishings by emerging and recognized artists, and then putting on a show. For Jackie Braitman, it’s a matter of taking an eyesore of a house that neighbors had wanted condemned and re-creating it top to bottom as a live-in work of art.

The transformations, as you’ll see in our feature section, are amazing.

Hope Daniels
Editor-in-Chief

Palette: Ruffled Feathers

February 2008 | BY Susan Caba | Issue 60 | NO COMMENTS

: “There Are So Many Ways to Say I Love You”

The only sound in Mary Sprague’s studio is a soft scritch as she sweeps a pastel stick across rag paper pinned on a drawing wall, her gestures revealing the feathery form of an emerging personality. The rooster’s chest puffs in gusty fury, his scarlet comb a plume of belligerent energy. Rarely has a fowl been in such a foul mood.

Or so big. This bruiser is as big as the artist herself–a sturdy five feet tall. Her eyes are soft green and good-humored, framed by blondish hair. The rooster, by contrast, is clearly seething, his eyes narrowed, beady and red-rimmed under great gray tufts of eyebrow.

A fixture on the St. Louis art scene for 40 years, 73-year old Sprague has recently turned her attention to chickens–fanciful chickens, angry chickens, chickens at once rollicking and elegant. Why chickens? It’s a phase, she says, begun three years ago on a four-oil-change, 16,000-mile, three-month cross-country odyssey by art van, a quest to draw “little animals in big places.”

Her chickens–many inspired by exotic breeds in Stephen Green-Armytage’s book, Extraordinary Chickens–are an exploration of style and technique. So finely detailed it seems a breath would ruff le their feathers, each starts with a broadbrush swipe that is nothing more than a thought in motion. “Motion is what it’s all about,” Sprague says.

Brimming with personality, the chickens are “all people I know,” says Sprague. But she discreetly declines to identify her human inspirations except for the mad, wet red hen with an Aunt Agatha ruff– “that’s me.”

“The human figure–I’ve never been able to identify with it. I don’t do drawings of humans because they don’t tell you the truth. They give you all the details and information, but you’re just drawing about what genes a person inherited.”

Because of that aversion, Sprague’s subjects have ranged from emotionally wrought interiors to muscular horses sketched with a barely contained energy. The unifying forces are expert draftsmanship, deft coloring and often an ethereal “something” in the atmosphere.

“Whether it be the subject of chickens, trees, horses or dreamscapes, her work has always had a seductive quality that is rich and alluring,” says Duane Reed, who has been representing Sprague at Duane Reed Gallery in St. Louis
for years. “There exists a common thread that binds her work, regardless of whether you are looking at something from the 1970s or at current material.”

Sprague’s series of domestic interiors from the 1980s seems at first benign. Then details emerge, like the detonation next to a refrigerator in the monochromatic “Little Bomb in the Kitchen,” or the wafting spirit escaping from a bedroom drawer in “Almost Certain.” At the time, Sprague’s marriage was dissolving. “My images usually reflect what’s going on in my life, in one way or another,” she says.

Sprague landed in St. Louis in the mid-1960s, with a master’s degree from Stanford University, a husband, four children and no intention of settling in the Midwest. “I was just going to be here a minute,” she says. She taught at St. Louis Community College; her 1968 painting of a frazzled woman in a hat with a red flower foretold the story–”What a Person Would Look Like if She Moved to Missouri and Taught for Thirty Years.”

Sprague paints from a mobile platform in her downtown loft; it moves backwards and forwards, up and down, at the touch of a lever, allowing her to reach the tops of her oversize paintings without balancing precariously on a stool.

She sidesteps the question of influences, saying, “I kind of got over the influence business 20 years ago.” She does remember a pen-and-ink tree by German painter Wols “that absolutely knocked me out–I cried. It was just a killer. I haven’t seen it since. That was 1952, but I still remember the feeling.”

A pen-and-ink tree is the first image in her catalog. Forty years later, she has returned to the theme. Six drawings of trees, so densely inked the paper seems three-dimensional, are pinned on her display wall. These are small, still pieces. Motion is confined to shifting light.

“Scritch, scritch, scritch,” she quips, mimicking the sound of a nib on paper. “I love that repetitive marking with the India ink. You can’t get that kind of development with anything else.”

Arts Drive: Charlottesville

January 2008 | BY Margaret Lucke | Issue 60 | NO COMMENTS

: Monticello, home of Thomas Jefferson, is a must-see on the Charlottesville tour agenda.

Charlottesville’s most famous artist, Thomas Jefferson, expressed his creative genius on a grand scale. He designed his home, Monticello, and the campus of the University of Virginia, both of which are recognized architectural masterpieces. As the author of the Declaration of Independence, he crafted some of the enduring principles of American democracy.

Tourists may make pilgrimages to Jeffersonian sites, but Charlottesville and its environs offer many other lures. A compact city of 40,000 in a picturesque setting at the edge of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Charlottesville combines historical charm and urban sophistication.

Local galleries provide a similar contrast. What they have in common is enthusiasm and excellent quality; this small city does art in a big way. To savor the area’s artistic pleasures, plan on taking a walk in town and a drive or two into the countryside.

The university campus is a fine place to start. After paying tribute to Jefferson at the signature Rotunda and strolling the lawns of his “academical village,” visit the University of Virginia Art Museum, whose extensive collections span nearly every continent and many centuries.

Then drive or hike to Water Street. In five short downtown blocks, it boasts three galleries that would be at home in any major city.

In a space as contemporary as the art on display, Les Yeux du Monde exhibits paintings and photographs by modern masters and regional artists, as well as handcrafted jewelry and furniture, and Mata Ortiz pottery from Mexico.

Nearby, in a modernistic metal clad building, is Second Street Gallery, central Virginia’s first artist-run alternative art space. It is committed to encouraging the public’s appreciation of cutting-edge contemporary art. “We designed the space to welcome people into the ‘white cube,’” says gallery director Leah Stoddard, “sacrificing wall space for windows to let daylight in.”

At Migration: A Gallery, owners Laura and Rob Jones have filled their airy space with a blend of two- and three-dimensional art by emerging and established artists. “I like to be a mix between the Smithsonian’s Renwick and Hirshhorn,” Laura says. The name Migration reflects their belief that beautiful, meaningful art takes one on a transformational journey.

A block north, parallel to Water Street, is the heart of Charlottesville, the lively Downtown Mall. Thirty years ago this stretch of Main Street was converted to a pedestrians-only park-seven inviting tree-lined blocks whose historic brick buildings are filled with shops, restaurants, theatres, even an ice rink. Kids love the Virginia Discovery Museum, and the outdoor Charlottesville Pavilion is a popular venue for concerts and community celebrations.

As you amble along the Mall, you’ll find several galleries to entice you. At Sage Moon, you can browse through three floors of art as classical music plays in the background. Watercolorist John Ruseau shows his work at the John Ruseau Gallery, and Vivian’s Art for Living offers jewelry, leatherwork, pottery, glass and sculpture by many artists. Three artist-run cooperative galleries attest to the wealth of local talent: Art Upstairs and BozArt emphasize paintings, while C’ville Arts features handcrafted objects in many mediums by more than 60 artists. A quick walk from the Mall brings you to what local writer Laura Parsons calls a “big playground for local artists.” Housed in a former elementary school, the nonprofit McGuffey Art Center has galleries, a gift shop, art classrooms and studios where you might catch a glimpse of a potter, sculptor or printmaker at work.

By now, Blue Ridge vistas are beckoning. As you drive toward the mountains, stop at The Barn Swallow at the western edge of Charlottesville. Ceramic artists Janice Arone and Mary Ann Burk have turned a barn built in the 1800s into a charming rustic gallery in a garden setting. They carry pottery, jewelry, glass, textiles and furniture by more than 20 artists, much of it with nature themes.

A detour south on Highway 151 brings you to a century-old building. Once the Wintergreen Country Store, it has taken on new life as Spruce Creek Gallery, filled with pottery, paintings, wood and glass. “We started in 1997 when five Nelson County artists got together to have a showcase,” says gallery manager Sue Bernard. “Now we show 70 to 80 artists at any time.”

In Waynesboro there is an essential stop-the Artisans Center of Virginia. Designated the state’s official center for fine crafts, the nonprofit membership organization encourages and promotes the state’s 3,000 craft artists. A jury selects the artists who display work in the large retail and exhibition gallery, where the items range from elegant glass vases to fine furniture to off beat quilted teapots. “What always excites me,” says executive director Michael Dowell, “is hearing the ‘aha’ gasp when people come in for the first time and see the variety and quality of craft we have in Virginia.”

When you return to Charlottesville, bring your visit to a fitting finale with a tour of Monticello, where Thomas Jefferson began the tradition of artistry that his hometown continues in elegant style.