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DEAR JOHN . . .

* * * * ½ 3 votos

April 13th, 2008 | EK29, Lemon Street Gallery, Visual Artist

by Franco Tarsitano

johnconlon.jpg

John Conlon and I first met in an abstract class at Lemon Street. At first John seemed a very shy person. Slowly his sparkle in the eye New England, dry wit surfaced. John’s sensitive, insightful comments of artists’ work, talent and personality integrated very easily into the gallery. There’s an appreciation for his thoughts and direction. His work exhibits these personal characteristics.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in Hartford Connecticut and lived most of my youth in New England. I graduated high school in Providence Rhode Island.

What brought you to Kenosha?

A smokey gray 2004 Honda Civic with mud guards and a sunroof, actually, I started to look for a place that taught encaustic painting and found out about Lemon Street.


How did you get started in painting? Encaustic?

Actually, I was in NYC attending a Color Symposium and someone there was telling me about encaustic painting. When I got back I found out that Lemon Street was going to be teaching a class in encaustic painting so I took the class. There were only 2 students in the class so I got a lot of individual instruction. I got hooked.

Did you have an interest in art early on?

I think the earliest account of my painting skills was when I was about 3 years old; I assisted my two older brothers with painting the living room walls, floors, and furniture much to my parent’s dismay. I was too young to remember it but my brothers would often remind me of it and how much trouble they got into.
I also spent Saturday morning’s drawing at the Children’s Museum in Hartford Connecticut. I won many awards in school for different art projects, and I won 2nd place in a state wide poster contest in Junior High.
I painted very little after high school but started taking art courses at Rhode Island Junior College in the eighties, then took art classes in the early 90’s and then stopped painting altogether. At this point I hope I will be good enough to paint the places I loved as a kid in New England when I retire from my current job and move back there.

You have an interesting professional background and a very diverse education…

After high school, I worked as a cook for five years at Providence College and took night class from Johnson & Wales. I worked with special needs and cognitively disabled children and adults.
I attended Central Vocational High School for wood working and cabinet making, and then graduated from a one year bible school in upstate New York, (Work Of Life Bible Institute, Schroon Lake, NY). Then earned my BA in Music, Christian Education, & Bible from Cedarville University, Cedarville, Ohio and an Associates Degree in Liberal Arts from Rhode Island Jr. College, Warwick Rhode, Island.
For the last eleven years, I work for S C Johnson & Son Inc. in RD&E, Air Care Department, and am part of the Global Fragrancing Group. I develop colors and working with a team of others developing fragrances for the candle lines for both the Americas, and Europe.

Okay, that makes me feel inadequate…do you need to take a deep breath here? LOL

No not really, I could prattle on forever. Did I tell you about the time I was one of the cooks for a party given for Vice President Ford? Or that I use to act and was in a bicentennial musical and that I traveled around the US with it for about 6 months. We even made a movie musical that was on TV.
Did I ever tell you about the time I spent 5 weeks in Australia? Yea, I was in a small singing group (12) from College and we did a total of 100 concerts.
Did you know that Brian Denah…

Ohhh-K…moving right along…lol. Some of your work has been reproductions?

I’m not sure what you mean about reproductions, but I started to take some oil painting classes offered at the gallery; two Impressionism classes and one Rembrandt Revisited. Right now I’m working on developing technique which I will eventually carry over to creating more still life, landscapes, and seascape paintings.
I would love to paint landscapes and seascapes from places I know all over New England.

I lived in Boston for seven years and know how beautiful New England can be. What will we expect to see in your exhibit?

LOL…wet pictures with me holding a paint brush and a palette. I have several Impressionism style paintings, one Fauvist painting, (Kees van Dongen, women holding a black cat), one Renaissance painting (Titus as a monk), one still life of fruit and a bottle. I will also have several encaustic paintings.

I hope you’ll have some of your teddy bears!

I will probably have 2 or 3 hand made mohair teddy bears that look like early 1900 bears. I make the bears the same way the early Steiff Bears were made with imported German mohair and hand blown glass eyes, carter pin joints and wood shavings (stuffing).

John Conlon, you have been “exposed”.

John is member of the Lemon Street Gallery
Do not miss his Solo Exhibit:
~ April 16-May 11 2008 ~
Reception Sunday April 20 1-4 pm
Lemon Street Gallery & Artspace, Inc.
4601 Sheridan Road
Kenosha, WI 53140 USA
tel. 262.605.4745

4 comments ↓

#1 Melanie Hovey on 04.13.08 at 6:45 pm

Congratulations on your solo show!
John recently served as a capable teaching assistant to his Encaustic Painting instructor, Virginia Morrisseau. Together they coaxed the many students into some remarkable works! Thanks for being such a terrific member of the Lemon Street team!

#2 v. Morrisseau on 04.14.08 at 3:42 pm

Franco, and John !

Great write-up ! I am ready to hear more–

One more person hooked on Encaustics!! Congrats, John !

#3 Jess on 04.14.08 at 7:24 pm

Congratulations, John! I hope I’ll get a chance to stop by your solo show.

#4 terry on 04.15.08 at 6:44 pm

Very interesting article on a very interesting artist…a true renaissance man with eclectic tastes and lots of education and employment variety…..(phew!I hope I spelled all those big words correctly, and I didnt even have to spell encaustics!!!)

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