The Zen of an Artist – Audio interviews with Jeffrey Budzis and Pamela Paulsrud, Now Featured at Gallery Ten, through Sept 17
Posted on 12. Aug, 2009 by Stephen Kastner in Art exhibits, Artists
“Even an immobile stone will respond to you if you approach with love, call out, and talk to it.” – Shinagawa Tetsuzan, a celebrated Japanese calligrapher and poet
Charlene Berg brings together the very dissimilar works of two artists who share a very similar approach to the creative process in “Zen of an Artist,” the next exhibit at Gallery Ten in Gills Rock.
On Saturday, August 15 the 2nd floor display area opened with an exhibition of the creations of Wilmette papermaker and sculptor Pamela Paulsrud. The pen and ink drawings by Ellison Bay artist and Vietnam Veteran, Jeffrey L. Budzis are on display in the Tower Gallery on the 3rd floor. Both collections are unique, thought-provoking and derived from a certain method of transcendent meditation.
Both Budzis and Paulsrud – who have never met or spoken to each other – describe a manner in which they each quiet the mind to let the actions and resulting imagery flow through them and into creative existence.
India ink on cotton by Jeffrey Budzis
Jeffrey Budzis arrived at this method the hard way, battling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and then alcoholism to arrive at an eventual steady state more than a decade ago, working on his meticulous and highly exacting geometric pen and ink drawings and expressive oils each day in his rural Ellison Bay studio.
Click to listen to our own Door County Style exclusive interview with Jeffrey Budzis…
Budzis had no formal art training, but early on in his career, fell under the influence of the late Dale Kuipers who gifted him with art supplies and encouragement.
“I was very fortunate to have learned oil painting from a traditionalist. He taught me the techniques that allow a painting to be around for a couple of hundred years instead of crumbling,” says Budzis.
Jeffrey says he loves the freedom of working with oils and vibrant color as a balance to creating the highly detailed monochromatic pen and ink mosaics.
In working with India ink he explains, “Every line is definitive. I can’t use white-out. Some of my drawings have several hundred thousand little squares that make up the composition. When I get irritated with that, I go in the painting room and I start throwing paint – which is totally the opposite. Working the two media off each other is the perfect world.”
Despite living in an urban environment, Pamela Paulsrud intentionally connects with the forces of nature to invoke the same meditative state that Budzis describes. She listens for the stories told by books, trees and stones, each one more ancient than another.
Stones and distressed books by Pamela Paulsrud
She began pursuing calligraphy and papermaking as an art student, deriving a bond and a reverence for the source of much of the pulp she uses from trees. Pamela proceeded to extend her relationship with trees in a global outreach that links people all over the world together in a creative process online at TreeWhispers.com.
Treewhispers is an international collaboration involving paper, art and stories relating to trees as a symbol and resource. The project was launched in the year 2000 by Pamela Paulsrud and the late Marilyn Sward.
Click to listen to our own Door County Style exclusive interview with Pamela Paulsrud…
“Trees are symbols, resources, and inspirations. In remembering our own personal experiences with trees we deepen our appreciation, our awareness, our connection to trees, to the earth and to others,” she explains. “Somewhere within you there is a tree story. Just as the rings of a tree embody the stories of the tree, so too we carry the stories of trees.”
She invites you to create your own “tree rings” and share them online.
Pamela also listens and relates to the more ancient stories contained in stones. She ties them directly to those found in books by her sculpting and shaping of distressed books. The works derive from her respect for celebrated Japanese calligrapher and poet, Shinagawa Tetsuzan.
The shows will be on display through September 17.
Charlene’s Gallery Ten represents over 100 artists in a gallery collection that is contemporary, original and eclectic. GT Coffee, complements the gallery, serving espresso drinks and Door County cherry pie by-the-slice Thursday through Monday from 8 AM to 5 PM. The gallery is open Thursday through Monday from 10 AM to 5 PM at 12625 Hwy. 42 in Gills Rock, Wisconsin. Telephone 920.854.9907 for further information or visit on-line at www.GalleryTen.com.
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