Blog

The art class guided by Ms. B Zelt of Church Lane Elementary School  in Baltimore, MD created the works of art above.

I found the drawings to be engaging and transformative, playful and lighthearted in style and technique.  I would like to thank Ms. Zelt and her inspired and talented students for sharing their artwork with me.

Ms. Zelt wrote: The student art work has been inspired by two well respected artists by the
names of  Joann Wells Greenbaum who painted DREAMSCAPES and Marc Chagall
who painted, I and The Village in 1911.

This art work was studied by our third and fourth grade students where they
identified the elements used when creating a picture of FANTASY. Each of the
triangles reflect the following themes: FAMILY, FAVORITE FOOD, FAVORITE TOY,
AND A DREAM HOUSE. You will notice flying figures, people upside down,
unusual colors, crazy combinations of foods and toys that every child dreams
of having in their toy chest and things that can only happen in our
IMAGINATIONS.
To further emphasize FANTASY you will notice each picture may be turned in
any direction creating many new ILLUSIONS of reality.

Will Barnet (born May 25, 1911) is an American artist known for his paintings, watercolors, drawings, and prints depicting the human figure and animals, both in casual scenes of daily life and in transcendent dreamlike worlds.

Barnet's works, while remaining universal, reference his own personal history complete with images of his wife, his daughter and their family pets. As James Thomas Flexner wrote, Barnet’s work “makes us experience the interplay between the personal and the universal.” While remaining representational, the simple elegance of the figures and their flat surfaces reflect his exploration with abstraction. He was a key figure in the New York movement called Indian Space Painting, artists who based their abstract and semi-abstract work on Native American art. For many years he pursued abstraction in painting, then a fashionable trend in the USA. His later work returned to figurative painting. He is probably best known for his enigmatic portraits of family, made from the 1970s onwards, notable the Silent Seasons series. However, his earlier works maintain an edginess and brooding contemplation that is even more remarkable when compared with the more placid and pretty works which followed his second marriage.

While in State College, Pa I saw a painting by Will Barnett in the campus museum.  I was struck by the simplicity and moodiness that the artist depicted with very minimal shapes and colors.  In this painting  I am drawn to its similarity to a traditional Japanese woodblock, with it’s simplicity of design, color and space, it appears very peaceful and stable.