Friday, November 30, 2007

Five Artists Celebrate the Season in CDPL's Art Gallery!

Watching softly falling snowflakes wafting down from the heavens to cover brown leaves and dirty sidewalks left over from fall, is one of the more delicious delights of every delicious December. The twinkling beauty of nature's winter coat, couched in frigid air and crispy underfoot crunch, can easily entice you to build a silent, silly snowman complete with carrot nose for deer to feast on. When your tootsies freeze and the twirling wind nips at your nose, may we take this opportunity to warmly welcome you to the exquisite beauty of nature's indoor wonders pirouetting on the Walls and in the Display Cases of the Library's Mary Bishop Art Gallery for the month of December.

NATURE'S BOUNTY: SCULPTURES & LIFE CASTINGS by Jo Funk-Lauctes
The Display Cases are filled to the brim with original sculptures and castings created by Crawfordsville's own nature artist, Jo Funk-Lautes. Exercising her artistic versatility as a child, Jo found herself drawing pictures and carving wood any time she was free of other responsibilities. As an adult she engulfed herself in a career that created beauty in the dental lab, which she owned, and at home where she was a practicing artist.

Feeling stifled by previous jobs with no creativity, Jo flourished as a dental technician. She honed her artistic talent by working meticulously on her creativity both at home and at work. After 25 years of owning and working in her dental lab, Jo began selling her sculptures and castings and was delighted with the positive public response.

Eight years after carving her first piece, which ignited a desire to further this art medium, Jo constructed creative works for pleasure and commercial markets.

In 1999, she was commissioned to help create the Hunter Dan Large Game Series; a toy line that found it's way onto the shelves of Cabella's and other outdoor retailers. She carved and created multiple game accessories including replicas of the largest record holding buck and deer in the nation. With this, Jo's talents began to spread far beyond the wildlife realm and into a diversity of creative efforts.

Skilled in a range of mediums, Jo creates carvings, paintings, life castings, intricate jewelry, sculptures and wood burnings. Her collection shows a range of diversity that is limited only by her imagination. From incredibly small, detailed pieces, like jewelry, to a life-size statue, her abilities prove no piece is too small or large for her talents and passion. All of her pieces illustrate the things that Jo values most in her life.

Currently working on a new line of sculptures, Jo will work on every aspect of the pieces from creation in clay, to mold making, pouring the final piece into the mold and masterfully painting it. These pieces will be debuted and available online in 2008.

STRIKINGLY BEAUTIFUL HAND-MADE VIOLINS by Alan Frodge
What a delight to learn that cozy, comfy Crawfordsville can claim one of its citizens as a real-life Hand Made Violin Maker. WOW! Alan Frodge started making violins in 2004 and so far has made eight. He gave the first three to his nieces in Florida whose children play bluegrass. Alan himself began to play after making his first violin and is still learning.

His interest in creating violins was peaked by his Crawfordsville friend Archie Krout and a Stone Bluff friend Jerry Kelly.

It takes Alan about a month to make a violin. Though he has never kept track of the hours, he suspects it takes him over 100 hours to make one. His violins are all hand carved, including the scroll. The only parts purchased are the pegs, tailpiece, bridge, fingerboard and chin rest. The fingerboard and bridge are purchased rough and are hand-shaped to their final dimension. The purfling (the thin line of trim on the top and back) on all his violins is cut in, not painted on.

You will find two of Alan's Violins encased in the Display Case closest to the elevator on the Library's first floor. His #5 violin is unusual in that the neck, sides and back are made from sycamore rather than the usual maple. In his continuing search for knowledge on violin construction, he read that the wood of the sycamore has sometimes been used to make violins. So, he tried it! And liked the results! The sycamore, which gives a more mellow tone than maple, is highly figured and was purchased from Pennsylvania. The top is made from standard European spruce. This violin is priced at $800.00.

Alan's second violin, #6, includes all the things he wanted to try in one violin. First, the neck, sides and back are made from walnut grown on his farm. Alan says walnut is not normally used for violins, but he found the sound to be good and it looks nice. The next thing you will want to notice is the carved Lion's
Head on the top where there is usually a scroll. This carving took a lot longer to carve than a scroll because it is more intricate and Alan had never carved one before. The next thing you will notice is that there are no points at the c-bouts (center of the violin). Jerry Kelly told Alan that Antonio Stradivari once made a violin with no points, so Alan decided to try it. And the last thing you will notice is the light color of the edge on the top. That was achieved by wiping off the colored varnish in this area. This violin is priced at $900.00.

Alan has a website with additional information and illustrations if you would like to tap into it. The address is www.alanfrodge.com.

TIPPECANOE COUNTY ARTISTS TRI-BECCA: Rebecca Chapman
Rebecca (Becky) Chapman is a Lafayette artist specializing in oils, watercolors and colored pencil. Her compositions emphasize places she has traveled, floral themes and illustrations from literature.

Chapman enjoys creating art inspired by literature, poetry, songs, nature, travel and personal themes. Many of her images in this exhibit are pencil illustrations. Drawing has always been a natural way for her to express feelings or to create a certain mood. Even in her watercolors, she reaches for a pencil to create extra detail.

Her drawings usually tell a story from a song, literature or private thoughts and reflections. She has a set of drawings illustrating the song, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew", by Reba McIntire. The drawing of the figure emerging from a seed depicts a theme of personal growth from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden Pond". Other stories that have inspired her art are: "The Rabbits of Watership Down", "A Girl of the Limberlost" by Gene Stratton Porter, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", and "The Tell Tale Heart".

On travels with her husband throughout the year, Rebecca carries a sketchbook which allows her to create a special and personal souvenir of the trip and sketches that may someday become a painting.

Images of flowers and birds, most especially the intricate detail on the petal of a flower or the feather of a bird become both inspirational and a challenge to recreate for Becky. She enjoys capturing the beauty of birds remembered from growing up on a farm, the red-winged blackbird, the meadowlark, junco and a bluebird family. She is fascinated by their diversity, color and behavior.

Becky works within strict guidelines and tight deadlines as a graphic designer. Her personal drawing and painting allow her more freedom in the use of oils, watercolors, and colored pencils in Fine Art themes. The Fine Arts are her first love, though she does enjoy creating brochures or ads that communicate the essence of a business or organization. On occasion Becky has fun combining both graphic design and fine art in a single project.

TIPPECANOE COUNTY ARTISTS TRI-BECCA: Rebecca Longster
This Tippecanoe artist, Rebecca Longster is a writer, teacher and lover of words. That last comes in handy, as she teaches a variety of writing and literature classes in the Department of English at Purdue and for Purdue Statewide Technology. She is a recent graduate of the Stonecoast Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program through the University of Southern Maine, where she majored in Popular Fiction, and in late 2006, she started a local writers group for writers of genre or popular fiction in Indiana. This Rebecca finds it relaxing to express her creativity through visual art as well as through writing. She enjoys working in pencil, pastels, acrylics, and water colors, and is particularly interested in portraiture, unique places, and natural landscapes.

TIPPECANOE COUNTY ARTISTS TRI-BECCA: Rebecca Peters
This third Tippecanoe County Tri-Becca is a children's counselor and has been involved in art since she was old enough to hold a crayon. Her Dad still has a picture she drew when she was 5 years old. For the last few years she's been taking art classes from Betty Goodrich at the Morton Center in Lafayette. Rebecca has been a member of the Wabash Artist Alliance for the last three years. She enjoys all types of subject matter, working with pastels and more recently, acrylics. Rebecca finds her art a relaxing endeavor after her professional work as a child therapist for a local community mental health agency.

We hope you have warmed your body and soul with the beauty of nature's indoor wonders as interpreted by each of our FIVE ARTISTS CELEBRATING THE SEASON. Your tracks will be warmer now in the crispy, crunchy winter wonderland. Do come often and stay long!

Written by Diane Hammill

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