'Micro Masterpieces'
Thursday, November 20, 2003
FEATURES - ACCENT & ARTS 08G
By Nancy Gilson
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
 |
"Questioning" Monotype by Betsy Arvidson |
| ''The Tonalist Landscape: New Work by Betsy Arvidson'' will open with a reception from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday in the Wehrle Gallery at Ohio Dominican University, 1216 Sunbury Rd. The exhibit will continue through Jan. 16. Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Admission is free; parking is available in the lot west of Sunbury Road. |
From sepia ink, household oil and Q-tips, miniature miracles are born.
The tiny -- some just a square inch or two -- evocations of nature and portraits of people are the work of Betsy Arvidson, a printmaker with a process all her own.
Forty of her works will go on display Sunday at Ohio Dominican University. Seated at a worktable at Phoenix Rising, a printmaking cooperative on Parsons Avenue, Arvidson mixes burnt-sienna and raw-sepia inks with oil until she obtains ''the consistency of hot fudge -- not chocolate syrup, hot fudge.''
She rolls the ink on a small zinc plate; then, using a brush and even the palm of her plastic-gloved hand, she coaxes lines and images.
''There's some trees or some long grass, and this could be the beginning of a brook,'' she says.
Then, with a Q-tip, she begins taking away sections of ink, practicing the art of negative space that is the printmaker's trade.
''You know how kids look up at clouds and see shapes in them? I do the same thing when I look into ink," she says. ''I try not to get too caught up in the technique but make it a real place I'd like to be. I feel so connected to it.'
' The small, completed image can take 10 minutes -- or more than an hour.
The plate is then put on a press and topped with a sheet of thick paper soaked in water and blotted. Above a layer of felt blankets, the press is rolled over the plate and paper until the miniature landscape appears.
Arvidson usually applies a light color wash with a small brush, through a process similar to that used by Degas in some of his depictions of ballerinas. A slight acrylic glaze completes the work. '
'Betsy's process is unique,'' said Anne Cushman, co-founder of Phoenix Rising. ''I don't know of anyone else who works quite like that.''
The landscapes are tranquil and jewellike with titles as serene as the scenes: My Favorite Trail , Summer Rose , Into This Day , The Flowers of Grass.
''I like to go into nature because it gives me a sense of balance and calm,'' the artist said.
She also creates figurative images -- ''I've always stared at people'' -- that blend human physicality with emotion. In her Ohio Dominican show, figurative works reflect a ''trains and traveling'' theme; subjects seem to have been caught at train stations, contemplating life while they wait.
Janette Knowles, chairwoman of fine art and communication at Ohio Dominican, called Arvidson's work ''the best art we've had in the gallery in two years.''
''We're in an age in which art that uses technology seems to get a lot of press,'' Knowles said. ''I was attracted to Betsy's work because of the sheer beauty of her use of a very traditional medium. She takes that medium and brings it into the 21st century.''
Fellow printmaker Rebecca Morton said that watching Arvidson work ''is magical.''
''There's something that happens that you can't explain,'' she said. ''She sits down with a pair of latex gloves, a metal plate and a Q-tip. . . . A little fantasy world in whole cloth emerges. It's just incredible.''
Arvidson, who is 60 but looks 40, has been an artist all her life. But like many, she has made her living in pursuits other than art.
Born in Boston, she attended Kean University in New Jersey, then several art schools, including the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design School of Fine Arts, both in New York. Until six years ago, she lived in Manhattan, where the theme that is in much of her work developed: a yearning for the country.
''I knew that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life there,'' she said. ''New York has the best of everything and the worst of everything, and unless you're wealthy, life there is wearing.''
Without a job, she moved to Westerville, where her niece lived. She was hired as operations director for the Ohio Physicians Effectiveness Program, where she still works. On weekends, she makes prints.
''If there were any justice in this world,'' Morton said, ''prints would be all that Betsy had to do. She has such a special gift.''
For a long time, Arvidson said, ''I felt resentful to have to work full time. But then a woman I knew said, 'Why don't you look at it as a gift? You've been given a talent.' And that changed everything for me. ''I really believe it is a gift, and in my work, I listen for guidance about which way to go.''
As she works, Arvidson often finds herself surprised at the emerging image.
''On occasion I'm enormously happy and sometimes not,'' she said. ''Years ago, my mother said that if you don't like something, just put it under the bed. I try to do that, so I don't throw too much away. I'll pull something out and rework it.''
Knowles said Arvidson's prints ''work beautifully'' in Wehrle Gallery.
''The norm today in art is large scale,'' she said. ''Betsy's works are small and meditative. The viewer has to give to them as well.
''They're very quiet and, to me, they're evocative of the northern Renaissance paintings of the 15th century. They're just little jewels.''
Reprinted with permission © The Columbus Dispatch, 2003.
