Second Saturdays at Lemon Street . . .

Lemon Street Gallery Second Saturday Featured Artists through August 3rd.

VIRGINIA MORRISSEAU / “TOUCHABLE VISIONS”
Paintings made to be touched!
Encaustic: Beeswax with oil pigment mixed and melted and then polished.

Virginia’s art career started at 9 years old when she was awarded a scholarship from the Boston Museum of Fine Art School, and has continued her studies to this day. Another consuming interest took to priority for Virginia when she discovered the world of Science. An engineering career followed and art became a secondary.

From work on the atomic bomb instrumentation to aircraft design to development of health care products she became one of the first women to successfully pursue this field. She owns her own engineering consulting company, but has recently decided to pursue art full-time in her studio and gallery.

Virginia also has encaustic painting workshops at Lemon Street Gallery. Her focus for over the last ten years has been this ancient medium of combining beeswax with pigment and heating them as proven to be very successful for Virginia. She has won many awards, and has painting in private homes and corporation, in this country and in Norway.

Virginia’s next encaustic workshop at Lemon Street Gallery is on Saturday, August 2nd from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. To register call Lemon Street Gallery 262.605.4745 or stop by the gallery and also view her work.

TOM CLARK

Two things occurred in my life that led me to produce the pieces in the show.

First, I saw a powerful art exhibit at the San Francisco Public Library in 2006. It consisted of numerous artists using the hundreds of books destroyed over several years by one homophobic individual. After he was apprehended, library officials gave the damaged books to artists and asked them to create works using the books in whatever way they chose. The resulting pieces were astounding! To say I was moved by the diversity and power of that art show is an understatement.

The second influence was a fleeting (less than ten minute) conversation that I had with our son, LSG member Jesse Clark. He asked me if I thought art had to provoke the viewer in some way in order to be considered art. I realized that I have always been drawn to provocative works, so set out to make a series of pieces that prod the viewer into reacting in some way. You be the judge of my success.

Mark your Calendar for the next “Second Saturday” (August 9, 2008) featuring the following artists: Ruth E. Lyng, Cheri Mchugh, Marilyn Sterling and Musical guest Alonzo Smith.