Vibrant Village ™

Art's on my mind, and music's got me dancing around the kitchen. Maybe it's because the Beaufort Historical Association's having an art show Sept 4th & 5th on their site.  Or maybe it's because the American Music Festival launches its new season on Sept. 25th.

Art is the spice that flavors our lives

Why do I love art so?

Looking around my living room, I see that art is the spice that turns my habitat from black and white to color.

The paintings, the pottery, the little hand-woven rug, the wooden, blue dog sculpture from Fish Heads Gallery.  The ceramic flounder plate I found at the Mattie King Gallery that makes me smile every time I focus on its silly, google-eyed expression.  The over-sized seascapes we moved three thousand miles because they'd become old friends and we couldn't leave them behind.

How dull our world without art

How about you?  Do you, too, share your home with art and music?  And do they provoke memories of how they came into your life?  And aren't we very fortunate to live in a place filled with such a richness of creative spirit and artistic talent.

With art on my mind, I set out to talk with some of our creative folks to ask  “Why Do We Need Art—and Music?” Limits of space meant I could only interview a few of the many...but I hope those interviewed represent viewpoints of more.

John Masterson is a reverse glass painter and a sculptor using found materials.

Why do I make art?

After giving it thought, John Masterson answers:

"Art is what makes us human.

A lot of my work is very whimsical—it makes people smile and even laugh.  People identify with this; it engages them.

I don't create works to sell.  I paint for me. That's what people are interested in. As soon as it becomes work, it's not art for me.

Sometimes, I get lucky.  For example, I just got a commission for a painting.  The client wrote me a check and said 'paint what you want. We like your work.'

I appreciate that."

Bio. John is a self-taught artist originally from Massachusetts. He had been involved in the family furniture business.  When the building was lost in a fire, John moved to Colorado. After five years in the mountains, he found Colorado didn't feel like home—it was too far from the ocean.  John and his family began to search for 'a small tourist town on the ocean they could afford.'  They discovered Beaufort.  “This became home for us after three months.”  John now owns and operates Fish Heads Gallery on Middle Lane in Beaufort, NC, which is open seven days a week. A web site is in progress.

Mary Warshaw is a painter, an historian and a goodwill ambassador for Beaufort

Why do we need art?

Mary Warshaw says, "An art professor I had once said that 'art will be our salvation—it allows people to express our feelings and emotions.'

I believe this is true.

Have you noticed how children use art? For them it's a huge form of personal expression and communication.  Kids are free and open with their art—until their peers and adults start judging them.

Only art gives permanence to feelings.  Art stirs feelings and emotions in other people. The artist has the ability to create their interpretation of what they're seeing—it may or not appeal.

One thing I've found people are quick to react to is their home. In my paintings of houses and porches, I want the viewer to step into the painting, to go sit on the porch, to feel the history. That's why I often have an open gate...this gives a welcome; an invitation to come inside. It's been my pleasure to create porch-scapes of our special historic Beaufort homes."

Bio. Mary Warshaw is well-known for her watercolors of Beaufort''s historic homes and porches.  Most recently, Mary has published a coffee table book: Porchscapes, The Colors of Beaufort, Three Centuries of History Woven Through Art and Works. Compiled over the past eight years, the book's foundation is built around the houses that create Beaufort's street vistas and the people who built and lived in these  “Architectural Treasures.”  The introduction, by architectural historian Tony P. Wrenn, is a wonderful love song to Beaufort.  Find out more, visit:  http://warshawsites.blogspot.com

Why should we support art and music?

Thomas "Tip" Noe, American Music Festival Board member and supporter

This is what Tip Noe thinks:  "This question is really the same question as “Why bother to get out of bed in the morning?”  There are practical aspects to consider in both cases.  For example, if you don’t get out of bed and eat, you die.  For example, if there are no 'performance' opportunities in your community, then there will be no performing artists.

Another way of asking the question is:  How do we get to the next level in our lives?  And where does 'the practical' transition into something else?

We know that we can live a better life if we join together in communities where needs can be met by people who are good at what they do instead of having to be on our own and being master of nothing.  Of course, even in a community it is possible to pass through life seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing and being nothing.  How much better, then, to be fully engaged with life, to create and see beauty, and to live in harmony with nature and our neighbors.

This is where art can come to help us out.  If we do not farm, we will starve.  If we do not have the experience of art, our lives will be the poorer for its absence.

If you would like to see art in action, join in the musical community of the American Music Festival at the History Place in Morehead City, NC, on September 25.  There will be a performance by the Ciompi Quartet from Duke University of some of the great music by Ravel, Debussy and Francaix.  This is a practical way to experience community, meet friends, support the arts in our community and benefit directly from the accumulated musical experience of the 20th century.

Bio. Tip Noe is a resident of Beaufort, NC having retired to Beaufort from Washington, DC after a career in government service. He is on the board of the American Music Festival, a Carteret County organization that has been bringing classical music to Eastern North Carolina for 21 years.  He has one daughter who is a professional musician and professor of music.  He regrets that he is the non-musical member of the family, being the only family member that didn't reach the performance level on at least one instrument. For  more information about the American Music Festival try www.americanmusicfestival.org

Frank Kerr, Architect, Painter

What is Art?

To me, art is a language.  It follows all the dictates of language and how language came about. Art is possibly the first language, especially cave art and hieroglyphics.  I imagine cavemen wanted to record something; an incident or a message.

Elements of art are the words that convey light, dark, value, motion.

Around 1930, George H. Opdyke, a mining engineer who was interested in art, wrote  a book titled Art and Nature Appreciation.  In his book, Opdyke said that the structure of art is very similar to language—and could do some of the same things as language.

You have form, water, air, fire and all of that.  Expressions of art are expressions of what those forms can do.  But the basics of art came first.  Defining art and defining the philosophy of art would be the expression of the language. The American Institute of Architects though he had something there.

What caught my attention was the dismissal of  Opdyke's book by art directors and curators. Most museum curators would not admit to art being a language.  They don't want art to be a language because they would rather have art be obscure. That way, they gain power.

Bio. For nearly eight decades, Francis K. Kerr has created original watercolor paintings of natural and built landscapes in North America and Europe. Even in his nineties, he continues to delight friends and family each holiday season with his watercolor miniature Christmas cards.

A native of Canada, Frank Kerr spent his career as an architect in Minneapolis and Washington,  DC.  He began his art and painting instruction at the age of twelve.  In 2009, Frank and wife Mary, a retired interior designer, re-located to Beaufort, NC to be closer to their daughter and son-in-law, Kathy and Mark Schurdevin.  Frank and Mary now make their home in a cottage surrounded by flowering foliage on the outside, and with walls of vibrant art on the inside. Visit Frank's web site to enjoy his paintings: www.frankkerr.com

Why do we need art?

Mary Cotter Hurst  says, "We need art for the same reason we need oxygen--it lets us breathe, it gives us life. Without art, we would suffocate. And because we breathe, we're in touch with all five senses.

Mary Cotter Hurst, print-maker and etchings creator

We see art, we touch art, we hear art through music, we can smell art in the form of floral arrangements, in an artful garden, or in nature.  And we taste art through the culinary arts in food and wine."

Bio. Mary Cotter Hurst comes to Beaufort by way of Western Massachusetts, Plymouth MA and Provincetown MA. She earned her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston MA, with Honors in Printmaking, and her MFA from UMASS. She got her first press in 1989, and has been producing limited etchings ever since. She has won many awards including Honorable Mention, Plymouth Guild 26th Annual Show printmaking 1994, First Place Plymouth Guild Annual Show, Printmaking 1993, Honorable Mention Plymouth Guild Annual Show printmaking1992, Duxbury Art Association; Duxbury MA Second Place 1992, Yarmouth Arts Council; Yarmouth MA First Place 1991, South Shore Art Association; Cohasset MA First Place, Printmaking 1990. Her etchings are in numerous private collections. Before moving to Beaufort NC she managed the Sarah Jessica Fine Arts Gallery in Provincetown MA where she still shows her work. Mary is also the owner of the Cotter Hurst Gallery located at the Old Seaport Inn in Beaufort NC, which she operates with her husband, FJ Hurst. www.oldseaportinn.com.

After Europe, Beaufort's now Jack Saylor's home

Why do people need art?

I'm not so sure people do need art in as much as they desire it, like they desire a fine wine or visiting some wonderful place like Florence, Italy or Beaufort. Such things are chosen out of desire, not necessity, which is why artists should never assume that what they do is needed, but is instead desired. The only people, in my opinion, who truly need art, are the artists themselves. For us it is absolutely vital.

Bio. Jack Saylor, a native of North Carolina, received a BS degree in painting from Barton College in Wilson, NC in 1983. After spending time studying art in Spain and France, Jack and his wife, Ann, moved to Beaufort in 1995, so he could commit fully to his passion of painting the sea. Jack has had numerous solo exhibitions and has been featured in Our State magazine (December 2008)  and American Art  Collector (July 2010). His work is held in numerous private and corporate collections. Jack is represented in North Carolina by Carteret Contemporary Art in Morehead City and by City Art Gallery in Greenville. Beginning this fall, his work will be represented nationally by Cavalier Galleries in Greenwich CT and Nantucket Island. Poster reproductions of Jack's works are published by Bruce McGaw Graphics in New York. Discover more about Jack and his art at www.jacksaylor.com.

What about you?

Why do you love art?

Do art and music impact your life?  Tell us how.  Please register on this site and share your views with us.

What are your ideas on how our community--and we, ourselves--can help our artists thrive?

And how can we make our community even more of a vibrant and artful place?