ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: Frances Iverson

I love speaking with other artists and taking a peek into their creative lives so I decided to dedicate a portion of my blog posts to sharing the incredibly talented people I have the privilege to work alongside in my community.  Today my first guest is painter Frances Iverson.

Frances' work is filled with a multitude of juicy texture and vibrant colour.  I first saw it several years ago at a meeting at City Hall and was surprised to find out she had only recently begun painting.  Her use of colour and contrast feels like years of experience have gone into the work.

She is currently excited to share three of her paintings in an International Exhibit in New York beginning July 25 and running through to September 10 but was also recognized locally a few years ago when she won first place Creative Arts & Crafts honours at the Calgary Stampede.  Studying with a few artists exposed her to a variety of media and styles of working but she has finally found her own muse in abstraction.  She finds joy and balance in painting binges followed by small breaks in between.

I had a nice chat with Frances and was happy to hear that she feels about her art in a similar way that I do about mine...it seems many artists do.  Perhaps these are the desires that inspire creativity.

What are you inspired by?
I love colour...and I love to paint, it centers me.  Painting is like meditation.  I find real inner peace when I do it.

What is the best advice you have received?
Basically to do what you love.  A lesson I learned was not to paint for anyone else but yourself.  I paint for me.

Why do you do what you do?
I tried many different things and finally came to a place when this made sense to me...the abstraction, the texture...makes sense.  I love colour and texture, using a palette knife.  To me art is a feeling.  One feels a certain way when you look at artwork.  The artist portrays one feeling and the observer may feel something different.

Though her father passed away when she was a toddler, his love of painting was inherited by her as she began doodling and drawing as a young teenager on a farm in Saskatchewan and she was recognized for her talent.  Growing up amidst some difficult times followed by marriage and then twins halted her creative journey for awhile but thankfully she has returned to her early passion.  As well as being involved in the local art community through her involvement on the Board of Directors of the Airdrie Regional ARTS Society, Frances has been painting, learning and exhibiting regularly.  You can view more of her work along with her exhibition schedule online at http://www.francesiverson.com/.

Patchwork of Life / Mixed Media & Ink