Published Thursday, October 31, 2002
Herald Staff Writer
Irene Was has been painting since the mid-'70s, but got serious about it when a work was accepted into a juried show in 1994 at Trumbull Art Gallery, Warren, Ohio.
"That told me there was some worth to my work," she said.
It also prompted her to enroll in college to get better training, which she did in 1995 -- at age 74.
Now 81, Ms. Was has a bachelor in fine arts degree, which she received in the spring, from Kent (Ohio) State University.
"It pays to live to be 80," said the mother of four, grandmother of nine and great-grandmother of 12.
Eleanor Snowe, who is 87, might say the same thing.
The life-long beautician, seamstress and baker took up painting when her husband, Leon, who died seven years ago, gave her money for painting classes.
Rattling off the shows her work has been in and who has bought her paintings, she added, "I'm not bragging when I say these things. It still amazes me. I just thought it would be fun."
The painting of both artists, who live in Warren, can be seen through Nov. 7 at Sharon Jewelry and Art, through Friday at the Valley Arts Guild, Sharon, and Sunday through Dec. 20 at TAG.
Ms. Was, a retired elementary teacher, initially painted flowers, but quit at the urging of her college professors.
"Don't paint flowers at the university," she warned.
She embraced abstractionism and undertook such academic exercises as dumping different colors of paint on a large canvas and swirling it with the end of the brush, creating "Perpetual Motion," a work at Sharon Jewelry and Art.
She calls the approach "automatism," explaining, "There's not a lot of thinking going on."
Abstracts "invite" the viewer to explore them and respond to them, she said.
"It leaves you to investigate," she explained. "What do you see in it? It's not what I see in it."
Ms. Was has started a hybrid representational-abstract approach she calls "linealism" or "dashalism" for the lines that make up each recognizable object.
Ms. Was, whose husband, Thaddeus, died four years ago, is looking for new materials to work with and techniques to try, saying she has the "restless spirit" of an artist.
"I think there is an inner spirit in me that is seeking expression," said the former actor and singer. "At this point in my life, it's coming out through art."
Ms. Snowe is not as restless as Ms. Was, and hasn't abandoned representational art. She paints florals, landscapes and animals, and is in one of her busiest painting periods of the year.
"I keep my paints in the car," she said, adding that she loves the colors of autumn. "I go out and drive around and paint."
For studio work, she paints in her living room because of her preference for the east light.
"I won't paint from November into January because it takes me a while to get the table cleaned off," quipped the mother of two.
She becomes engrossed in her work and admits to being "mean" while painting because she hates to be disturbed.
A proponent of the old-fashioned "busy hands" lifestyle, Ms. Snowe has been a beautician for 70 years, and still works with hair one day a week. She said her customers frequently wander from the breezeway in which she does hair to her living room to check on her latest paintings.
"Practically all my customers have bought paintings from me," she said.
You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at
jpinchot@sharonherald.com