LITTLE ROCK — Four artists from the Tri-Lakes Edition coverage area have works on display in the Arkansas Pastel Society’s seventh national exhibition, Reflections in Pastel. The exhibit will remain up through Feb. 24 at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies in Little Rock.
Local artists include the following:
• Shirley Anderson of Hot Springs Village has her painting Late Morning Shadow in the show.
“I paint from nature and want to capture the beauty of the creation around me,” said Anderson, who is a charter member of the Arkansas Pastel Society and is now a Signature Member of that organization. She currently serves as treasurer and served as president from 2006 to 2007. She is also a member of the Lone Star Pastel Society, the Pastel Society of the Southwest, the Pastel Society of the West Coast and Brush Strokes of Hot Springs Village, and is an associate member of the Pastel Society of America.
“Much of my work is now created on location, which gives me the truest sense of the patterns of light and shadows, as well as my interpretation of colors. I have now enjoyed plein air painting in Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana and California, as well as in Spain and France, and have found special places everywhere. I am indeed developing a greater appreciation of the vibrancy evoked by painting ‘en plein air.’”
Anderson’s artwork that was accepted into the Arkansas Pastel Society’s juried exhibition is a painting she did in the studio from a plein air piece done near Santa Barbara, California.
She has recently had artwork accepted in the National Juried Exhibition sponsored by the Pastel Society of the West Coast, as well as in the National Juried Exhibition sponsored by the Pastel Society of the Southwest.
• Anita Bogard of Royal had Hilton Head Marsh selected for the exhibit.
“My entry in Reflections in Pastel is a scene I photographed while vacationing in Hilton Head last spring,” Bogard said. “This is a marshland that used to be an oyster-farming area. We dined in a restaurant right on the marsh that used to be the processing plant for the oysters farmed on the premises. It was early evening, and the colors and reflections were striking to witness. Naturally, I named my entry Hilton Head Marsh.”
Bogard said her first art instruction was in an evening class at National Park Community College in 2003, when she was introduced to painting with acrylics.
“Six years later, I discovered an artist friend’s pastels and fell in love with the buttery soft pieces of color,” she said. “I still get out the tubes of acrylic and play with the brushes, but nothing thrills me like those sticks of pigmented chalk. I love trees and landscape scenes, and most of my vacation photos are taken with plans to use them as painting references, but my heart is drawn to animals, especially pet portraits.
“I have my own home studio and have fellow painters join me each week as we paint together and improve together.”
• Marlene Gremillion of Hot Springs Village has two paintings in the exhibit, Winrock Farm View and Trying It Out.
“I enjoy trying pastel, although it is not my main medium,” said Gremillion, who is a Signature Member of the Arkansas Pastel Society.
“Winrock View is a scene on the Rockefeller farm on Petit Jean Mountain. I loved the subtle lighting in the early morning and attempted to portray it, along with the beautiful clouds, which I particularly enjoy painting,” she said.
“The abstract piece Trying It Out was an experiment to see how pastel would look over an abstract piece of collaged papers,” Gremillion said. “It was fun to create, and I will experiment more along this line. I especially like the texture you can accomplish with the pastel over the oriental papers.
“I have not been doing pastel too many years, maybe 12 [years], but I am beginning to appreciate what all you can do with the soft pastels and will continue to use them periodically.”
• Carole Katchen of Hot Springs had Thanks to the Master Gardeners accepted in the show.
“After working with pastels for five decades, I am amazed that I still find new challenges,” Katchen said. “In this piece, I was working to capture the amazing brilliance of Arkansas gardens in the summer.
“In Hot Springs, the Master Gardeners help the city workers to make sure that every park and traffic island becomes a work of art in itself. My challenge as an artist was to show all that color and still convey a sense of space and movement.”
Katchen illustrated her first children’s book for Scholastic in 1965. Her first solo art exhibit was in 1972 at Saks Galleries in Denver, Colorado. Since then, she has shown her work in galleries and museums throughout the United States, in Asia and South America. Her awards include Master Pastellist, Pastel Society of America; Golden Mentor Award, International Association of Pastel Societies; Outstanding Working Woman, U.S. Department of Labor; special recognition, Los Angeles Women in Design; and Who’s Who of American Art since 1966. Her 14 books about art, published by North Light Books and Watson-Guptill, have been translated into French, German, Dutch and Chinese.
Her work has appeared recently in several national magazines, including Pastel Journal, Vanity Fair and International Artist. She has taught art for the University of California Los Angeles, Shanghai University, the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and others. She teaches classes at her studio in Hot Springs.
Christine Ivers of Meriden, Connecticut, served as juror for the Arkansas Pastel Society exhibit. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and two-dimensional design from the Hartford Art School and worked for more than 40 years in the advertising field before she returned to her love of painting. She is a past president of the Connecticut Pastel Society, a former member of the Pastel Society of America Board of Governors, where she is a Master Pastelist, and was inducted into the International Association of Pastel Societies Master Circle of Pastelists.
The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is at 401 President Clinton Ave. in Little Rock. It is part of the Central Arkansas Library System.
Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information, call (501) 320-5790.
For more information on the Arkansas Pastel Society, visit www.arkansaspastelsociety.com.