Making Their Mark: Alliance Art Gallery’s Featured Artists in June
by Pat Kerns Alliance Art Gallery welcomes guest artist Wendy Stegall from Fairfield, Iowa for the month of June. A California native, she moved to Fairfield to be a part of the Transcendental Meditation movement there.
When asked how long she had been creating art she said her whole life and had considered a career in the visual arts. Then she discovered Kathak classical dance of India and she became a professional dancer. In 2005 she began doing small colored pencil “dances” and in 2015 she moved into painting. When she could no longer dance, the color and movement of dance became a part of her art.
She works today on paper and canvas, including a variety of materials in her abstract works such as acrylics, ink pens, thread, and fabrics. She wants her art to grab the viewer’s attention from a distance and on closer inspection they will find details that keep them studying. Wendy considers abstract art to be music made visible.
“For me, this has been a journey of growing courage to make a mark, to make a strong shapes on top of the color gradations I love, whether in oils or random drips of ink, followed by small lines to fill in the spaces.”
Gallery artist Cindy Logan is the spotlight artist for the month of June. Like our guest artist, Cindy works in a wide variety of media. After many years of teaching it seems impossible for her to settle on just one medium and chooses her materials based on her subject. Making these choices is difficult because she because she has taught it all.
A Texas native she has often said she is here under duress, but she is certainly a vital part of the arts in her adopted town of Louisiana, Missouri as well as of Alliance Art Gallery. Cindy recently received a National DAR American Heritage Women in the Arts Recognition Award. She works tirelessly to promote the arts through her affiliation with the Raintree Arts Council, by teaching art to students in her home studio, and with her own award-winning art.
Cindy often has as many as eight pieces going at a time and as a featured artist this month, is presenting a wide variety of works with a wide variety of subjects in a variety of shapes and sizes.
When asked to comment about how art enriches her life, Cindy said “I believe that when I am in the process of creating, it is a spiritual experience and a form of prayer.
Both of these artists will be giving an artist’s talk at 6:00 pm during June’s Second Saturday Art Walk on June 13th. Join these artists and other gallery artists for refreshments and conversation from 4:00 to 7:00 pm that evening.
