ESTEVAN - Art Concepts Custom Framing commercial art gallery hosted their fourth annual Artisan Open House on Thursday, with many great local talents coming in to talk about their art.
Photographer Byron Fichter, artists Lauren Daae, Theresa Fuhr and Michael Lonechild, as well as musician and visual artist Lindsay Arnold, whose works are on display at the gallery, were among guests that night.
Art Concepts’ gallery organizes events of this type to take the pressure off one artist and also to allow the artists to get to know each other.
Quite a few people took an opportunity to indulge in the art, ask questions and just socialize with nice company.
The Mercury spoke to Fuhr about the paintings she has on display and her art.
Her favourite technique is watercolour, which she's been doing for over 30 years, but she also does acrylic on canvas and pencil paintings, experiments with different styles and details, and also creates some jewelry.
Fuhr said when she was starting with acrylic, she thought she would do bold and think paintings, but that didn't work out and instead, she ended up creating a series of fragile, detailed monochromic moment reflections with a light touch of colour.
She created acrylic paintings about seven years ago, and then went back to watercolour. The gallery now has a few acrylic paintings left and some watercolours, and each one keeps a memory of a meaningful moment or an important place, with some other ideas intertwined into them.
"A lot of them are actually from White Bear Lake, that's where my cabin is. That's where my peaceful zone is. That's where I go to really relax," shared Fuhr. "We've been going there since I was a kid and that's a great space. It's not like Kenosee, because Kenosee is a government park and everything is so regulated. And White Bear is more laid back. You can talk to anybody. Most people have boathouses along the shoreline. So that's your little property there and people just visit all the time but we get to know people."
The details on the paintings often carry some extra meaning, inviting the viewers to join artists in exploring some ideas.
"There is a pocket watch," said Fuhr pointing at one of the paintings. "It's lost in time. That's the title. The bike is lost in time. There's a timepiece just to remind you about time."
She said she has a passion for trees, so tall and thin canvases work well for that. Birch trees are popular around White Bear Lake and appear in her art often. With her paintings, she gives the viewer a direction, an idea of the moment and sight, but allows the imagination to finish the picture.
While acrylic paintings are monochromatic with a gentle touch of colour, watercolours are filled with warm and soft vibrant colours, which go beyond the original paper and onto the matting.
"This is something I started a long time ago when I only had original paintings and making prints came into being popular. So I started making prints but it bothered me that every print, I'm just printing them to paper, it just was the same," Fuhr said.
To make prints special, she would add hand pieces, and then she started doing the same to her original watercolours.
Art Concepts Custom Framing carries many art pieces by numerous local and a couple of non-local artists. Outside paintings of different techniques and styles and photographs, they have a collection of pottery, jewelry and posters on display for visitors to enjoy. Everything at the gallery is also available for sale.
