{"id":3584,"date":"2011-02-23T13:37:20","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T18:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=3584"},"modified":"2011-02-23T13:38:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T18:38:14","slug":"whats-up-at-wassenberg-22311","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2011\/02\/23\/whats-up-at-wassenberg-22311\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Up at Wassenberg 2\/23\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thank you for the welcome!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Hope L. Wallace
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>
Mary Minnig, art teacher, talks about the fiber art exhibit to kids from St. Marys school.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thank you to everyone who stopped by the reception on Sunday February 20th to welcome and support me in my new post as director of The Wassenberg Art Center!<\/p>\n

The warm response, wonderful food and great turnout are further evidence of the good people of Van Wert\u2019s commitment to the arts in their community. With this type of civic involvement opportunity for program and exhibit expansion are boundless! I am truly excited, inspired and honored to serve The Wassenberg Art Center\u2019s mission and to continue the rich heritage it has provided to the area. Public ideas are welcome and crucial so please, do not hesitate to contact the center if there is something you want to share, explore, learn or create!<\/p>\n

We will soon be preparing for the upcoming Ohio Watercolor Exhibit, so if you haven\u2019t had a chance to check out \u201cThe Art of Fiber\u201d, get to the gallery this week and see the intricate quilts and unique rug designs on display. This show is sponsored by 1st Federal Savings & Loan and Stephanie Dawn.\u00a0 Exhibit Hours are 1-5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday (closed Mondays) and admission is free.<\/p>\n

The Ohio Watercolor Society exhibit is a traveling show featuring beautiful works from some of Ohio\u2019s finest watercolorists.\u00a0 It will be displayed at the Wassenberg Art Center from March 8 through March 27, and is sponsored by Central Mutual Insurance and Purmort Brothers Insurance Agency.<\/p>\n

The Wassenberg Art Center is located at 643 S. Washington Street in Van Wert, Ohio.\u00a0 Contact us at 419.238.6837 or by email wassenberg@embarqmail.com.\u00a0 Our website is www.vanwert.com\/wassenberg.<\/p>\n

Personal references for memory jogging<\/strong><\/h2>\n

By Kay Sluterbeck
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most artists can\u2019t just pull a picture out of their heads on short notice.\u00a0 Unless they are painting a completely abstract picture, they usually have to have something to help them come up with things like shapes, colors, and composition.\u00a0 This is where personal reference material comes in.<\/p>\n

Reference material comes in a lot of formats.\u00a0 It can be sketches, tiny rough paintings, photographs, magazine clippings, or things remembered and jotted down later.\u00a0 The very best reference materials are things that have personal meaning for the artist — things that will help him\/her paint something that stirred their emotions to the point of wanting to paint it.\u00a0 Of all the ways to collect reference material, your own sketches and photos will probably yield the best results because they mean something personal to you.<\/p>\n

For example:\u00a0 A couple of days ago I was driving in the country and passed an old grain storage building out in the middle of nowhere. The lonely scene stayed in my mind.\u00a0 When I got home, I quickly did a rough sketch from memory of the dilapidated building, the melting snow, the brown grass peeking through, and the dark fields and woods beyond.\u00a0 The sketch will be enough to jog my memory of the scene when I do the painting.<\/p>\n

Using photographs as reference is almost as good, but because photos are so easy to take, the camera rather than the artist does the looking.\u00a0 Fortunately, we can combine different kinds of reference materials to fit our needs.\u00a0 Artist Charles Sovek spent time sketching backstage in a theater during rehearsals.\u00a0 \u201cThe subject matter was inspiring, the people and props were exciting, and the color and mood were a perfect backdrop for some possible paintings,\u201d he says.\u00a0 However, the only material he could come away with were quick drawings in his sketchbook.\u00a0 He returned to the theater later, after rehearsal, and took photos of exactly what props, costumes, and colors looked like.\u00a0\u00a0 Using all these bits and pieces to bring back memories of the atmosphere of the theater, he created several impressive paintings.<\/p>\n

Another way to retain images for future pictures is \u201cmemory painting.\u201d\u00a0 Many artists develop their visual memories to such a point that they can retain enough information to sketch a detailed drawing of a subject weeks after seeing it.\u00a0 Anyone can improve their visual memory by simply making the effort to really look at what is around them.\u00a0 For example, if you are waiting for an appointment you can study the details of the waiting room — the location and kind of furniture, the colors, the decorations and plants, and even the other people in the room.\u00a0 Some people remember details best; others like to look at the whole scene and keep the impression of it in their mind.\u00a0 When that impression is put into paint, it usually has the essence of the scene uncluttered by trivial material.<\/p>\n

Memory painting isn\u2019t anything new.\u00a0 Whistler would have a friend describe a scene to him as he looked at it.\u00a0 Then he went to his studio and worked from memory, recalling his friend\u2019s words to help trigger the visual images he retained from the scene.<\/p>\n

Using personal reference material does more than help you remember a scene; it also gives your work life and feeling.\u00a0 A few years ago an artist entered several paintings in a local competitive exhibit.\u00a0 The rules called for original paintings (\u201coriginal\u201d meaning coming from the artist\u2019s own ideas, not copied from another person\u2019s art or photo).\u00a0 A few people suspected that the artist had copied the pictures from someone else\u2019s photographs.\u00a0 However, no one could prove that the paintings weren\u2019t original, so the pictures were included in the jurying process.\u00a0 The jurors eliminated the artist\u2019s paintings in the first round of jurying.\u00a0 One juror commented, \u201cThese paintings are really well done, but they have no emotion.\u00a0 The artist didn\u2019t put any feeling into the work, and it is boring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Personal reference material helps artists share their feelings with those who view their art.\u00a0 Using personal sketches and your own photos will give your paintings a quality of \u201caliveness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thank you for the welcome! By Hope L. Wallace Thank you to everyone who stopped by the reception on Sunday February 20th to welcome and support me in my new post as director of The Wassenberg Art Center! The warm response, wonderful food and great turnout are further evidence of the good people of Van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wassenberg"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 12:27:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}