Posts Tagged ‘painter’

Mary Sanders is a Charleston-area painter who is best known for her portraits of people.  Her unique portraits include drips, smudges, and under-painting, giving them a sort of extemporaneous, abstract-art look – although they are at the same time detailed and full of personality.

Early Life
Sanders was born in Princeton, WV, in October of 1949.  She first witnessed the “power of art,” as she calls it, when she broke her mother’s 78 RPM recording of an opera and her mother cried.  While she received encouragement from her family to pursue her artistic talent, she decided to explore other talents because her sister was also interested in art and showed a lot

 of talent.  “It was my sister who was the artist,” explains Sanders.  “No two children could be the same thing.”

Her first formal training was much later, at Oregon State University in the early 1970’s.  She was an art major, with emphasis on pottery.  She enjoyed the tactile experience, but slowly moved toward drawing and painting later in life.  She is mostly self-taught.

Inspiration/ Admiration
Sanders is mostly inspired by art that she sees around her.  She currently works in her Charleston studio, which is in a basement equipped with “extremely bright lights.”  She is currently setting up a second studio, in Bath County, above a garage, with a beautiful view of two fields and a river. 

Sanders says her biggest challenge is finding time to work on her art.  As a “morning person,” she enjoys working in her studio first thing every day, but is usually driving to work at that time.   Instead, she tries to spend as much time as possible every weekend working in her studio when there are no distractions.  Her favorite piece of her own work is a self-portrait in watercolor.

Current/ Future Work
Sanders is currently between projects, and is very busy with her work as a Charleston lawyer.  She has exhibited her work at the Bath County Art Show for years.  She also juried into the 280 exhibit at the Huntington Museum in 2007, and the WV Artist Guild show in 2006.  She has participated in shows titled “The Little Known,” and “Artistic Stimulus” in Charleston, WV.

Paula Clendenin is a Charleston area painter who is best known for her innovative abstract works.  Her work can be seen in many local locations, including Taylor Books, the Avampato Museum (Clay Center), and the Art Store on Bridge Road.  She is best known for her series of paintings that incorporated a language of symbols, including mountains, throught the entire series of paintings, but is moving toward a new body of work that includes pieces incoroporating coal dust, rust, and other environmental elements into her paintings.

Early Life
Paula Clendenin was born in Charleston, West Virginia, and lived there until her parents divorced six months after her birth.  After their divorce, she moved to Cedar Grove with her mother.  As a child, she enjoyed coloring books, paint by number sets, and Walt Disney.   As she grew up and started seriously considering majoring in art, her parents began to grow more nervous about her choice, but encouraged her to do her best.  She graduated from West Virginia University and received her MFA in 1975.

Since then, Paula’s artistic training continued.  She has had seven jobs in art throughout the U.S., collections in seventeen different places including the Clay Center for the Arts in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, and more than fifteen exhibits, about half of them taking place in West Virginia.  Her most recent show was at Frances Naumann Gallery in New York last spring, and her last local show was at the Huntington Museum of Art a few years ago.  She is currently working on a project for a one-person show in May for The Art Store Show in Charleston, West Virginia.  If she is not at an art show, however, you can find her in her studio, painting in her attic, drawing in her dining room, printing in her spare bedroom, or building things in her basement. 

Current Work
When it comes to painting, the words that describe Paula’s works best are “bold,” “textural,” and “symbolic.”  She says that she gets her ideas for paintings from just about anywhere.  Although she enjoys using symbols, her more recent artwork has become less dependent on them.  She also says that people do not need to understand her in order to get her art work.  “I hope that the work speaks to them directly without my interrupting it for them,” she quotes.  Her artistic goal is to develop her art to the best of her ability using all of her creativity to its highest. 

Paula uses a variety of tools when working, but her most commonly used one is her iPod, because she likes listening to music while working. She also enjoys the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

Mark Tobin Moore is a Charleston, West Virginia artist who specializes in Rauschenberg-like mixed media paintings full of pop culture references and thought-provoking social statements.

Early Life
As a young man growing up in Washington D.C., professor Moore loved to draw. As a teenager he would spend hours in his room listening to the Beatles and painting dioramas, model ships, WWII planes, and other military related crafts. “My first art experience was drawing Civil War battles with little ant-like figures, maybe hundreds per scene. My brother would tape a few sheets of paper together so I could depict really big battles. Some of these took days to complete.” After realizing his potential and love for art, Mark first began developing his craft by receiving mild training from his older brother. From age 10 to age 12 he received further instruction during his stay at Scotus Academy, a boys private school in Edinburgh, Scotland. Upon returning to the states, Mark enrolled in Morris Harvey (Now known as the University of Charleston) as well as Marshall and later West Virginia University. After attending all three of these schools professor Moore received his BA, MA, and MFA in art.

Inspiration and Admiration
“My favorite work by someone else should probably be answered in two ways. Art-history-wise, I really love Robert Rauschenberg’s combines from the 1950’s and 1960’s. Locally, a few of the up-and-comers interest me, but I have to say the collage-painters Hank Keeling, Dick Allowatt, and Eric Pardue usually inspire me the most. Of course, I must also mention Robert Villamagna in Wheeling. He’s an assemblage and collage genius, that guy.” Mark’s inspiration comes from music, and some art works, mostly Abstract Expressionist, or Pop. He also finds that discarded objects, photography and other pieces of “scrap” truly speak to him.

Current and Future WorkToday Mark Moore is a professor at Concord University. He owns his own studio called the Blue Door Art Studio and is highly regarded in the art community for his many works which include: works for museum shows, a large installation piece, a six-panel traveling history exhibit and much more. One could find Mark’s work anywhere from The Washington Street Gallery in Lewisburg as well as regional museums and university galleries and was recently featured in the Clay Center invitational, Autobiographies: Six West Virginia Artists. He has done shows in Paris, France as well as a number of places in Germany.

Mark’s future plans include a number of goals. Continuing to be able to afford his art studio is first on the list. Two is continuing to create art that is real to him. Art that is authentic and reflects his desire to really feel what is happening to him. “Goal three, then, is being able to filter myself-to be able to discern the difference between my inner-noise, and meaningful insights…at least about my own experiences. These seem to come less often as I age, since the more I live the less I know. That’s for sure.”

Susan Petryszak is a local artist who paints impressionist landscape paintings.  Susan uses oil based paint and paints on canvas or sometimes wood.  She uses a wide range of colors in her paintings. The colors vary in her artwork, she sometimes uses warm colors and then in other paintings she uses cool colors.  The paintings that she makes are picture of a landscape but if you look really close you will notice many colors are used to make that one painting.  Her art makes you use your imagination to figure out what the painting is of.  It’s not cut and dry, you have to think a little.

Susan Petryzsak says painting is problem solving exercise for her (www.wvculture.com 3/16/09).  She says that her early years of painting were frustrating for her because she could not get her paintings to express what she was feeling or thinking.  West Virginia is her inspiration for her paintings (www.wvculture.com 3/16/09).  She says West Virginia captures what she is trying to say.  West Virginia is a good influence for her art.

Susan Petryzsak went to Marshall University from 1976-1980.  While she was there she got her B.A. in education/biology-general science and was Magna Cum Laude of her class.  Then in 1992-1996 she went back to Marshall University and got her M.A. in painting.  Petryzsak’s art is represented by Keny Galleries, Mcjunkin Gallery, the Art Store, and Gallery Camino Reel.  Susan’s art has been in many different selected juried exhibitions in the past such as The Selected Artist Group Show at Sunrise Museum in Charleston, WV, the Cultural Center in 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2000, the Salmugundi Club 18^th Annual Art Exhibition in New York, and she won the Award of Excellence-purchase in 1999 at the West Virginia Juried Exhibition.

Rob Cleland was born and raised in Charleston West Virginia. His earliest art experience that he can recall was drawing a volcano at a friends house. He attributes his love of art to his dad who would pay him two cents for a black and white drawing and five cents for color when he was little. Cleland had no artistic training until college. He spent one year at West Virginia University studying art and then went to the Institute of Pittsburgh and got an Associates Degree in Visual Communications.

photo by Alex Wilson

Rob Cleland is an artist located in Charleston, West Virginia. He does mainly printmaking and painting. His artwork is on display in several local galleries in Charleston. 

Rob Cleland began working as an airbrush artist in a mall as well as doing screen printing for a company called Balzout. He then attended WVSC from 1990-1994 receiving a bachelors degree in communications. Later he went back to school from 2001-2003 to receive a Masters in Printmaking from Marshall University.

Inspirations/Admirations
When it comes to inspiration for his artwork, Cleland believes the moment is his biggest inspiration. “The moment is probably my biggest inspiration. I feel most inspired with challenging work or when a problem comes up and a solution has to be found.” Even so, he still likes to visit the library, other galleries, and Kanawha State Forest for even more inspiration- giving truth to his statement that “inspirations are all over the place.”

Rob Cleland’s favorite work of his own is “Carlita at Kirby” to most onlookers this drawing would seem just a beautiful drawing of a dog playing in the water. However, to Rob Cleland the drawing has more sentimental value. The dog, Carlita, was a family dog that has since passed away and his parents have sold the house where the original photo was taken. Rob Cleland said this work is his favorite because for him it holds a lot of memories.

Rob Cleland also enjoys other artist’s works and a few of his favorites are Robert Villamanga, Stan Sporny, and Henry Koerner. He enjoys Sporny and Koerner’s work especially because they use abstract paint strokes that eventually form a realistic image when viewed from a distance.

Current and Future Works
Recently, Cleland has been working on a letter “R” for this year’s Festival posters. He also will be participating, along with other artists, in United Methodist’s “Stations of the Cross Show.” Cleland’s station is the one where Peter denies Christ three times before the cock crows. Furthermore, he has been scheduled to do an illustration of the capitol building burning for the Midland Trail as well as working on some paintings and assemblages of robots.