Art brings joy

There is an interesting article, Art Brings Joy To The Artist, Too, in the Albuquerque Journal here, today by Jim Belshaw. (It says the article is free, I hope the link works. ) It is about Peggy Zuris, a 52 year old plein air artist that is just entered Hospice. She is a colorist.

The author, Belshaw, said,

"Artists perform a sleight of hand (a sleight of eye?)that I don't pretend to understand. A long time ago in my checkered career it was my job to edit art reviews , and I came away from it thinking that quite a few self-styled art "critics" didn't understand it, either. But they had a way of writing in great, looping circles that made you think they understood. (They were in fact, artists in their own right, creators of a kind of barnyard oeuvre.)

As for me, I am a rank amateur. I look at a painting, step up as close to it as I can so I can see the brush strokes, see where the hand pressed to make a point or leave only a suggestion of one, and then step back with a question: "How did she do that? What did she see that I didn't."

Here is a Zuris quote from the article,

"I love colors," she said. "For a while back in the '80s I fought depression, and then I saw a show on really bright paintings, and I wanted to capture that. I wanted to capture the color. It's the first thing you see in a painting, and then the images and shapes. But I love color. God created it, and I like to use it to tell a story, to create a mood. I use it to tell the viewer how I feel about a project."

The article ends:

"Regardless of the circumstances, the sleight of hand continues, the artistry I will never understand. It produces colors and images I don't see until they leave her hand and appear on the canvas before her. As I said, artists have always appeared to be magicians from where I sit.
"Brush strokes are like a journey, my journey" she said. "I like paintings where you can see the brush strokes, see where the thought came from, see where it's going. The chemo takes energy, but I need to paint. I need to get friends together and paint. It's a gift from God. It's a gift to create."

Write to Jim Belshaw at The Albuquerque Journal, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; telephone — 823-3930; e-mail — jbelshaw@abqjournal.com


Zuris isn't able to paint plein air right now, but is still painting with friends. How great is that?