October 2006 Artist of the Month

Each month LARAC highlights the work of an Artist from the Adirondack Region.

Ann Woodward grew up surrounded by art and science.  Her mother is an artist who ran an art school during her childhood.  Ann states, "I was never for want of paint, pencils and clay or old magazines and papers for collage-making.  From my father, a physiologist, I inherited a keen interest in science with an attention to detail and a curiosity about seeing the insides of things."

The School of Fine and Applied Arts of Boston University provided her academic training, stressing the importance of a solid mastery of anatomy and technique.  She studied drawing and painting and majored in sculpture out of admiration for the sculptor and superb teacher Lloyd Lillie.  After leaving BU, she turned back to the more portable and intimate medium of watercolor, but maintained an interest in and awareness of “portraying” an object in space.

For a while, painting took a back seat to other interests in her life--Ann became involved in editing for television, and the science-loving side of her led to her return to school to study nursing.  She continued to paint still lifes and landscapes, but gradually the medium of watercolor in and of itself lost its appeal.  Ann's search to regain the “spark” in her painting led to her rediscovery of a “required” book from her BU days entitled A PAINTER’S COMPANION.  Written by one of the school’s teachers, it detailed and provided “recipes” for all of the various techniques and mediums used in painting.

Ann says, "I started experimenting with egg tempera and gold leaf in my work and renewed my love of collage.  Soon I was incorporating all these techniques as well as drawing into my paintings, and the staleness and loss of interest I had been experiencing vanished.  I like to juxtapose the textures, surfaces and luminances of the various media; I like the whiteness of paper and the feeling of space seen around a sculpture or in works of Japanese and Chinese art; I like the structure and order of the hexagrams of the I CHING; I like the “real” and the abstract.  I seek to combine these elements, to change the way a still life or landscape is experienced, and to create a sense of peace and unity – a visual poem."