At a very young age Susan Wahlrab was expressing her own “important ideas”. “My grandmother said I came home from whatever event and went right for my drawing pad or my desk chalkboard and immediately created a visual diary of what most interested me,” says Wahlrab. “Making images has been my way of integrating life’s experiences since I was very smallI.” Having someone to nurture those interests and natural curiosities soon led Susan down the road to becoming an artist.
Tag: Artist Insights
First Lives – Ellen Welch Granter
Ellen Granter has been with Maine Art Paintings and Sculpture for over ten years. Her love of nature and wildlife, especially the winged ones, is known well in the Maine art community. Her work is peaceful and warm and welcomes the viewer in with open arms. Yet, her life did not start at an easel.
First Lives – David Witbeck
“As a kid, I thought I wanted to be an artist… or maybe a musician,” says David Witbeck. “As a high school senior my choices were music school in Potsdam, NY (the boonies, -40 in the winter), or Art School in the Big Apple. What would you choose?”
First Lives – The History of an Artist
We each have a history. For a few of us it is quite long or quite colorful, or both. For some of us it is a kaleidoscope of people and places who have touched us and left a mark. For many of us it is very different than our present. But…for all of us, it is what made us, for better or worse, who we are today.
Jill Valliere; A Day in My Life
Even without the dogs, most days in the studio I am surrounded by mayhem. Paint cans open and dripping, mixing containers piled all over, and me, covered in every color mixed that day. To the outsider it may look like chaos, but it is truly how I am most comfortable, most productive. I can’t be troubled to take the time to put things away, organize paint colors, or wash every brush after each use, no, I am here to paint.
Photographs and Memories – David Witbeck and Fishwife
David thought it would be fun to somehow use the photo in his art and started a painting. “It became too much of a copy of the photograph, so I abandoned it. It still sits unfinished, face against my studio wall.” Luckily for us the photograph continued to poke at his imagination. “I kept looking at the photo. I knew there was something that eventually would come from it.” One morning, months later, he walked into his studio, picked up a piece of charcoal and in an hour or so had a drawing that resulted in one of his most recent woodblock prints, “Fishwife”.
Barn Talk with Janis H. Sanders
“Barns and old houses are wonderful and wondrous places, places where people have worked and played and lived and created. They have their own simple functional beauty, They are artifacts left in their own footsteps, footprints walked away from,” says Janis Sanders during a recent discussion about one of his favorite inspirations. “The echoes are still in the air if you listen just right.”
The Birches – Liz Hoag
These are paintings, images discovered in acrylic. These trees are captured in such exquisite detail it takes a moment to be sure. The black and white blur of bark, the multitude of greens playing in the leaves, and the lightest of blue in a perfect sky.
Tangle – A Liz Hoag Show
Maine Art Paintings and Sculpture is pleased to announce our most recent addition to the family, as well as our upcoming show, Tangle. This one woman show is an up-close look at a piece of Maine’s most intricate natural works of art. Her trees.
Liz Hoag – A New Maine Art Artist
The family at Maine Art Painting and Sculpture is growing. Artist Liz Hoag has recently joined the gallery, and we are excited to introduce her. Liz has been living in Maine for over twenty-five years. Presently, she resides in Portland, but her studio space is in Westbrook. Much of her work is focused, or sometimes unfocused, on the Maine outdoors.