Art & Artists

British actor and writer Julian Fellowes arrived at the pinnacle of his life’s work in 2002 when he won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Gosford Park.

"Love and work...work and love, that’s all there is,” said Sigmund Freud. But how many of us can combine those seemingly divergent realms of meaning and state that we love our work?

The fiesta has already started, but you’ve got an open invitation so don’t worry about being late.

Wanted: Good-humored men and women from all walks of life who like to work with their hands.

His paintings are as mesmerizing as the sea itself. Composed of thousands of crescent-shaped wedges of oil paint, Francis Mesaros’s canvases contemplate the eternal theme of sea and sky.

“I don’t understand this. I can’t tell you what this is,” Ron Van Sweringen is saying about his abstract paintings. He pronounces his words with the soft vowels of a Southern aristocrat, the emphasis of an old-time revivalist and the rapid delivery of a man with no time to spare. The work in question is a composition of tangled strands and splotches of color that seems to float in the inky blackness of outer space.

Potter and graphic designer Sean Clinton is reticent to talk about himself. He’s not shy, exactly; the tall, 44 year old exudes a boyish enthusiasm when talking about art and life.

Nancy Blair is a woman with a history – a herstory, that is. A frank feminist, the 50-something is a sculptor in ceramics, glass and mixed media; an author with five published books to her credit; an educator who teaches ceramics at the Vero Beach Museum of Art and hot-cast glass at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington state; a scholar whose specialty is the goddess-centered religions of pre-history and a business owner who started and operated both a successful restaurant and an art reproduction company.

They make it seem so easy – the “they” being Lee LaPointe and Ann Webber, who can look at a work of art and begin to envision one or more floral arrangements with similar colors, line and form.

“It’s a race against time,” Charles Caito says. “You struggle to find film – they keep threatening to discontinue silver film and they’ve discontinued my favorite paper.

George Paxton is someone who looks before he leaps but, once committed, will pursue the course without flagging. His current goal is to create figural sculptures that resonate with the passion of his heroes: Michelangelo, Bernini, Rodin.