Tallahassee’s LeMoyne Arts is featuring a triple-treat for area artists and art lovers. The new show opens this Friday evening (8/3).
First, there is an exhibit called “From the Ground Up – Plein Air and Pottery.” One of the featured artists in the pottery arena is Sally Rude. Although she admitted pottery is not what she does with clay.
“I really enjoy doing animals. I love animals! I’m very much an animal person, particularly a dog person,” she explained.
And indeed, Rude has one whimsical dog sculpture in this show. She’s named him “Studly.”
“He is anatomically correct,” she acknowledged. “But that was really not the reason that I picked that name. I picked that name because he’s obviously so handsome!”
Other Rude works include a raven with a caught fish in its beak and a sheep.
“I never did find a name for the raven, but the sheep’s name is: ‘You’s Not Fat; You's Fluffy.’”
Also exhibiting at the show is Tallahassee painter Natalia Andreeva.
“I do everything. I do watercolor, oil, portraits, still life, (and) landscape,” she said.
But here, Andreeva is concentrating on the genre of painting called “plein air.” Originally these were small, quick studies used by artists as essentially practice or planning pieces for the larger, final works. But she said the whole idea of plein air painting has changed over time.
“With the more modern and speeded-up times, we don’t have much time to process whatever is going on in our lives, so we have just a raw impression of whatever we see in front of us.”
So it’s now essentially, “speed painting.” LeMoyne Executive Director Ann Kozeliski said, besides exhibiting, Andreeva will be overseeing an open-to-everyone exercise in plein air painting this Saturday.
“That is going to be starting at 9 a.m. and going until noon. If you’re a plein air painter, bring your kit here and we’ll set you up. You can paint in the area, in the historic district right down on Park Avenue.”
There’s another facet to the exhibit, though. Kozeliski says these are the amazing oriental ink paintings of the father/son duo from Tianjin China, Shan and Xinyue Gao. Kozeliski translated.
“The father’s name is ‘Tall Mountain.’ And then the son is either ‘Young Mountain’ or ‘Small Mountain.’”
But Kozeliski stressed there’s nothing small about their contribution to the exhibit.
“There are 32 paintings by both the son and the father, but we have a large assortment of the wild orchids and they’re just stunning!”
The collection also includes other flowers, fans and even delicate insect images, all rendered on golden panels. Kozeliski said all was in readiness for the unveiling.
“It opens August 3rd at 5 p.m. to members; 6 p.m. to the general public.”
More activities, she added, will take place this Saturday, August 4th after the plein air competition.
"We'll have a gallery talk at 1 p.m. after the quick draw session and an award for 1st place will be given for the quick draw session as well."
The From the Ground Up - Plein Air and Pottery exhibit, along with the exquisite ink paintings from the Chinese father/son duo will be on display at LeMoyne Arts through August 25th.
