News can grab us by our throats. ICE raids and troops escalate tension in Los Angeles. Soldiers parade in Washington as millions rally in opposition nationwide. As Senators debate a budget bill, polls show it’s unpopular.
What IS popular?
Joy.
The Peoria Art Guild plans to offer some joy, if not momentary escape and amusement, in its exhibition “Cows in the Gallery,” showing through July 24, with an opening reception 5-8 p.m. July 11.
L.A.’s mayor may have said, “Trump didn’t inherit a crisis, he created one,” but real creators are featured in this exhibit. Displaying images and objects are Paul Eshelman, an Elizabeth, Ill., potter who’s been in the Guild’s Fine Arts Fair on the Riverfront; Sandra McKenzie Schmitt, a Washington, Ill., sculptor who’s specialized in ceramic work after earning her MFA at Bradley and exhibiting in the New York City area; and award-winning painter and Peoria native Nancy Bass, whose forte for some 30 years has been animals in general and cows in particular.
“We live in harried times,” Bass has said. “Cows take us back to when life wasn’t beating so fast. Cows are very calm. They seem the epitome of pastoral life; they have a quality of peace and wisdom.”
All three will celebrate the beauty and personalities of cows in distinctive works, and Bass talked with the Community Word about her work and approach.
Tracing her interest in art – and animals – to using crayons to draw a pink poodle when she was 3, Bass recalls participating in a few local shows before attending Drake University and moving to the East in 1983.
“I was in a National Scholastic show when I was a student at Richwoods High School. I think it was at Lakeview,” she says. “I was in an exhibit with a local art group and won first place for a portrait of my daughter. That was over 40 years ago.”
Decades later, she’s shown in galleries in New York, North Carolina, Texas and Utah, and now is preparing material for the Peoria Art Guild – three or four Museum Series paintings and 10 or so of her 6” x 6” portraits from her Herd Series.
Certainly no “Madame Bovary,” Bass concedes she’s been fascinated with cows for years.
“I always have been drawn to animals,” she says. “When my husband decided to buy a farm and raise cattle, I didn’t imagine becoming a cow artist. But I started out as a children’s portrait painter, so I became drawn to the cows I lived with on our farm in Virginia. Our herd was chosen for their beauty and personality and each was named.”
Indeed, some of her portraits depict different breeds with names such as Banjo and Biscuit, Polly and Teacup, Nibbles and Ferdinand.
“I fell in love with their innocence, individuality and beauty, and also their intelligence,” she says.
Charming and playful, her cow pieces are “definitely whimsical,” she adds.
She sometimes illustrates cows before recognizable paintings, and actually connecting them isn’t random.
“Choosing what artists work I want to use for a new painting does have to do with how I feel it speaks to me as an artist, but also how I can see a relationship with my cows,” she says. “What is happening in the world and my life also plays a part.”
As backgrounds, she’s used works by Hopper, Renoir, Van Gogh and Warhol.
“My list is endless with possibilities,” Bass says.
As for the process, she paints images of the original art as backdrops of a sort.
“It is very exciting to recreate a masterpiece and get into another artist’s space,” she says. “I have gained more admiration for the artists I have studied.”
The larger pieces are oil on canvas and the smaller paintings are on wood panels or other surfaces, she says.
As for the timing of “Cows in the Gallery,” it’s less a perfect storm than a refreshing summer shower.
“The goal is to make a beautiful painting; a moment of peace and beauty,” she’s said.
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