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Of
portraits and pots
By
Julie Rausch
A pot
thrower and a Dallas artist whose work is Texas big are two alumni
who embody the spirit of WSU’s upcoming alumni exhibition opening
Dec. 1 at the Ulrich Museum of Art.
As
a student in the early 1970s, figurative artist Connie Connally
listened to guest speakers Alice Neel and Isabel Bishop, both recognized
nationally for their work as portrait artists, at the Ulrich Museum.
She
says Bishop, who captured everyday life in New York on canvas, and
Neel, whose paintings were of family, friends and neighbors, strongly
influenced her work.
"People
I Know," a tapestry of people that includes family, friends,
neighbors, mentors and even the postman, is her most ambitious work
to date, says Connally, who lives in Dallas. The painting, created
in 2000, is 21 feet by 8 feet.
The
work has won multiple awards and has been selected for several juried
exhibitions including the international exhibition "Face to
Face 2" at the Stage Gallery in Merrick, N.Y. "People
I Know" was featured in the art section of The New York Times.
The
painting won the Artworks Award of Distinction, one of 12 merit
awards in this Ulrich Museum exhibition.
"The
exhibition allowed me to enter what can be described as the culmination
of all my artist creativity; the beginnings of which were rooted
in my exposure to Neel and Bishop. The artists along with the dedicated
teachers of WSU’s art department taught me a multifaceted love
of art with the discipline to make it a part of my work and life."
Connally,
who grew up in Oklahoma, is a nationally recognized illustrator
having won multiple awards for her work since 1975. Her paintings
are shown in group exhibitions and solo shows around the United
States, and her works are part of multiple corporate and private
collections.
David
Hiltner’s 18-inch diameter reduction-fired stoneware "Platter"
from his "Crop Square" series was inspired by the Kansas
landscape from an aerial perspective.
Hiltner
is interested in the colors and textures created from planted and
plowed fields. His wheel-thrown clay platters provide an excellent
surface to investigate some of those ideas, he says. The creative
designs on his platters, bowls and jars are peaked by childhood
memories of his family’s farm in Kansas.
"Most
of my time was spent in the fields or in the barn on my family’s
farm," says Hiltner, who now teaches at WSU. "The diverse
Kansas weather transformed the flat landscape into vivid colors
and textures.
"Slowly,
the fall colors faded calmly against the gray of winter. Light snow
covered the repetitive rows of milo from the previous fall’s
harvest. The sun soon coaxed small green shoots of life from under
the snow. Spring storms brought rain, flooding the fields, filling
ditches, bringing nourishment to the wheat, moving the silty soil,
eroding it to its own liking.
"The
summer’s dry hot wind would crack the earth open, and I would
watch the landscape transform itself into a surface resembling an
old Dutch master’s painting. I remember the smell of fresh
soil brought to the surface by the cold steel plow. I remember helping
my grandfather in the garden. I still hear him cursing the clay-filled
soil that I now turn into pots."
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