WATERCOLORS AT THE PIEDMONT ARTS MUSEUM (Cheri)

Mark and I went to high school with a girl from Tennessee.  She had a strong drawl, which made her seem exotic.  I wondered how close she lived to the rolling hills that I envisioned as the whole of her home State.

We saw her last spring.  She's a dentist in the Lake Tahoe/Reno area and, though she still has a hint of her drawl, I now saw Steel Magnolia in her.  This makes me think of the various, somewhat conflicting, images of the South that outsiders have:  vast fields or forests, faded history, dedication to culture, or centers of rapid growth.

I took a drive to the Piedmont Arts Center in Martinsville, Virginia on Friday.  Most of the route is back-road only, so we see a lot of the first two views on our fairly-frequent trips that direction.

I'll be posting in a couple of days about the road-side history that I saw, but today it's all about dedication to culture:  the exhibit of watercolor paintings that traveled to this spot from all over the world.

Per the Museum:

The 40 paintings included in this exhibition were selected from the
American Watercolor Society’s “International Exhibition,” held annually at the Salmagundi Club in New York City.  [From a field of] more than
1,100 artists from across the United States and 32 foreign countries . . .
only 40 works are chosen to tour nationally[.]

The Library at the Salmagundi Club itself - which is a membership club for artists and patrons - was the subject of the painting that drew me in most forcefully:

I kept coming back to it, longing to have the painting in a place where I could just sit and gaze for long periods of time.

The Club looks fascinating.  If I were going to be in New York City this week, I would definitely want to attend the lecture "Surprising Survivors: 18th Century Structures Still Standing in Manhattan."  It hosts many events focused on visual and literary arts.

I used to want to spend time learning watercolor painting because ethereal  Impressionist paintings like this call to me:

I took one watercolor class and realized just how difficult it is to control!

Here are two more of the Impressionist paintings that were most striking to me, both portraying steel with water and pigment:

Hard enough to use watercolor to create gauzy looks, but oh my!  I was amazed to discover that some extremely talented watercolor artists use the medium to portray hard-edge detail:

I would have sworn that this was a photograph, or at minimum, an oil painting.

Another steel structure, but here using the more exact method:

And here a painting by David Stickel, who specializes in capturing reflections on the surfaces of his painting subjects:

We were lucky to buy a print of another one of David's works, of vintage buildings reflected into the stark glass of a tech showroom.  The only regret I have is that each time I look at it, I wish I could have acquired the original.