ART EXHIBIT
Pat DeLuca and Craig Wilson
May 28 – June 30
Location: The Little Theatre Cafe
Hours: Cafe Open Hours (see thelittle.org)
Into the Blue / Pat DeLuca
The paintings in this show happened over the two years that followed my introduction to
encaustics. Encaustics are my jam. 🙂
The ability to lay down the quietest or most dramatic color with a brush and then craft those strokes with heat and blades and all sorts of odd and sundry tools that has struck a chord for me like no other medium I’ve worked in. The paintings in this show are a celebration of two heart stopping trips that had long been on my bucket list.
In the spring of 2018 I was lucky enough to spend a week with Kathryn Bevier and Lora Murphy painting at Ghost Ranch N.M, the home of Georgia O’Keefe; surrounded by artists and a never ending sky. I’ve wanted to go to Ghost Ranch and walk in O’Keefe’s shoes since I was an art student at the University of New Mexico. The power of that sky was waiting for me.
A year later, in the fall of 2019 I spent two weeks on the island of Vava’u, Tonga, living in a small fale (simple hut style house) on the blue blue waters of the South Pacific. I swam in a never ending ocean with some of the largest creatures on our planet – humpback whales. When I got back I couldn’t see anything but blue and the graceful shapes of clouds and creatures floating in it and above it.
There’s something about being transported by a color that I had never explored in my work
before.
On Instagram @patdelucatraining.
About Face / Craig Wilson
I have worked with metal all of my adult life, and the story of my work includes many different chapters. I’m a welder, and I began as a teenager doing sculpture in welded steel. I created whimsical frogs, boats, fantastical sailing bicycles, and very realistic wildlife sculptures: birds, fish, turtles, and more frogs.
I also had a 25-year career at the Strong Museum of Play, as a 3-D designer and mount maker. When I left that post 6 years ago, my aim was to get back to sculpting full time. First order of business was to clean and organize my studio/garage/welding shop. Sorting through my vast accumulation of metal bits and pieces, I found an old spade shovel and some auger drill bits—they became my first shovelhead “self-portrait.” I hung it on the outside of my shop, and I went about my work, taking commissions for architectural wall pieces, railings, and fish in welded steel.
But always that shovelhead was floating in my brain. I started going to estate sales, and collected old shovels of all types and sizes. Old metal tools started to look like eyes, ears, noses, brows, hair pieces and earrings. It became a bit of an obsession, but the process was pure creative, intuitive fun. I truly am enjoying myself with these heads. They have personalities. They have names. And I can’t see myself getting tired of them
any time soon …
Craig Wilson
cwilso13@rochester.rr.com
facebook.com/wilsonsculpture
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