Preserving Life’s Most Precious Memories
Joy Yarbrough, a native of Palmyra who now lives in St. Louis, is bringing her very unique art to Hannibal’s Alliance Art Gallery for the month of October. When asked about how she began doing her “drawing with scissors” silhouettes, she said her journey has been a path not of her conscious planning but directed by others put in her path.
Growing up, her father very much wanted her to be a teacher like several other members in her family. At his insistence she went to college and majored in education but also took art classes. During her senior year she interviewed with a representative of Hallmark who was on campus and was offered a job at their headquarters in Kansas City. She was also doing pastel portraits at Six Flags where her supervisor told her she was taking too long and suggested she try cutting silhouettes. After a week’s practice she began making silhouettes for the theme park’s customers. Joy was on the verge of quitting her cutting art, when a gentleman she met at an art fair in Florida offered to bring her silhouette paper that had been his deceased wife’s. So she again continued on this path. And once again someone led her to another opportunity to grow her business when they told her about the historic reenactments they were doing mostly in Illinois and they thought her art form would be a great addition to these events because families often had silhouettes cut of their loved ones because photographs were rare.
Joy does much more than portraits of people and pets. Some of the work she has done has been influenced by trips she has made especially China and Poland. One of the pieces exhibited at the Alliance Art Gallery was done using one of her photos she took in Poland of storks building their nests on top of chimneys.
Arthritis in her hands has slowed her down and she can’t work fast enough for fidgeting kids. Consequently, she now works from photographs rather than from live subjects. If you are interested in having a silhouette made from one of your photos, commissions can be arranged by contacting the artist at scissorslady14@gmail.com .
During the months of October and November, member artists Pat Kerns and Mary Jae are collaborating on some very special works and we are excited to see just how they have combined their talent for painting and beading.
Pat Kerns is the a founding member of the Alliance Art Gallery and the only artist at the gallery who has been there from the beginning. During her time as a featured artist she decided to create work based on her husband’s favorite painting. During the last several months of his life he told Pat “That’s the best painting you ever did” or “that is my favorite painting of yours”. This meant so much because he had never said anything like that before about any of the hundreds of paintings she has done. That work was done from flowers she purchased from a vendor at the Central Park Farmers Market. After doing the background and letting it dry she held each flower and painted it on the canvas so she could see its details closely. The same process was used in these latest works, with each flower held in honor of her husband and to remember the people that had brought her bouquets after is death in June. Many of the flowers were from their own gardens…a bouquet from the garden grown by a bride to be for her own wedding, others from former students and good friends.
In addition to these floral paintings, Pat has created other smaller pieces including landscapes from the Hannibal area. Most of her paintings have stories that she would love to share.
An opening reception will be held on Saturday on October 12 from 4:00 to 7:00 pm with an artist’s talk at 6:00 and a free drawing for artwork at 6:30. This event is free and open to the public.
