Never-ending Artists in Arivaca
October 1, 2009
Dolly DeVilleneuve was always fascinated by the splendor of the desert skies at sunset, rising from the multi-layered, many-hued mountain ranges, and the light-dark contrast of Mesquite trunks. She often visited her family in Arivaca and sketched, using colored pencils, returning to her home in San Diego to paint her canvases. Oil paints were her medium, and she mixed her own colors. “I love colors, ” she liked to tell people. “I’m really an illustrator; I like to stylize, and paint in my own way. ”
Light and color, nature and spirituality continue to shine through her many paintings. Born in Singapore, and living a wonderful childhood in Indonesia (“I loved to accompany my sea captain father down the wide, shallow rivers of Borneo”), the variety of languages, cultures, foods, and people influenced her paintings and way of thinking.
The family returned to the Netherlands, where Dolly studied at the The Hague Art Academy. “Draw your hand, ” the instructor told the students. “Which one? ” asked Dolly. “Draw your right hand with your left hand, and the left one with your right. ” She did, much to the amazement of everyone! The paintings from this period, just around and during World War II, show flowers in vases, dark colors and shadows. She escaped on a raft crossing a freezing river in January, from occupied northern Holland to the freed southern part. Freedom and courage were her middle names.
Many years later found Dolly in her beloved San Diego, where she painted canvas after canvas, with clear, light, beautiful colors, no shadows. Hours would pass, and she wouldn’t know it. They were a part of her, and she a part of them. “These flowers are not in this world, ” she would comment.
The last five years, from 1999-2004, Dolly lived with her family in Arivaca. She reflected on her adventurous life, loved to tell stories, and painted a few more paintings. Looking at one of the last, she said: ”You know, there’s writing on the colored stones of the wall, but I can’t read it. ” We like to think Dolly’s up there, painting those desert sunsets, adding her brush strokes to the mountains and trees. In her own way, of course.
(Thanks to Wendy Dresang for this article)
Lauri Barr, a Tucson almost-native, has been living in Arivaca since 2003. Lauri has always been an artist. She remembered getting up in the middle of the night with a flashlight because she wanted to draw in her sketchbook in the quiet of the night. At the age of nine she really realized her affinity to art when summer school teachers loved her drawings of sunsets. She took art classes all through school and majored in Fine Arts Education at the University of Arizona. She was inspired by Maurice Grossman, her ceramics teacher at the U of A. After college she taught sculpture classes and had a totally free spirit teaching experience at the clay studio at Green Valley Recreation. When her son was born she went back to school and got an elementary school certificate. Her first year she taught at a school on the Navajo Reservation, where the school board president’s uncle was the famous artist RC Gorman! Then she came back to Southern Arizona and taught for 17 years at the old Tubac School and then Rio Rico. The last five years before retirement she taught middle school art in Nogales. On her own time, as a destresser, she developed her own art. She does everything—painting, jewelry, sculpture, paper cutting. She likes the immediacy and brilliant colors of acrylics. Her favorite thing is whatever she’s doing at the moment, but she doesn’t dabble—she masters whatever medium it might be at the time. She is an artist of her own freedom, she says. Her favorite goal is to be more in tune with the moment, now that she is retired and free of most scheduling and events. Except for a few. She does two or three shows a year to sell her art, and the next one coming up is at Avalon Gardens in Tumacacori at the end of October. After Christmas, Lauri will be doing an altered books workshop at the Arivaca Branch Library.
George and Mary Alice “Sis” Bradt were a great influence on those of us who went to Sopori School in the 1950s. Sis was an artist in her own way, and expected it of us. All projects we undertook were illustrated in many and various ways, using bas relief, watercolor, drawings or just well done graphic design. Sis had a kiln and we learned “potting” under her direction. George’s forte was photography, and we were given the opportunity to use his professional camera to take and develop photos. They used photography to illustrate our annual program—on e we did the Iliad, with all of us playing a part, reading into the tape recorder and then showing it on slides. (Later on they did movies with the Elgin students.) They had a long reach and influence–in later years George encouraged my daughter and her cousin, so that each can do professional quality photos. The Bradt’s home was filled with original paintings and they each always expected to have a room devoted to their own projects. One of the students who remembers them fondly was Judith Casey Clauss, whose innate artistic talent was evident in childhood. She always had to draw, horses in those days, but now moves from one creative medium to another—from a long spate in watercolors—to art quilts, embroidery, book making pop-up cards, scrapbook and memory books. She too is an accomplished photographer. Judith keeps a sketchbook always at hand and spare moments are filled with drawings of what she sees. Maybe they will become something more, maybe not. One of my early memories was of wishing that I had Judith’s artistic talent, but if not, then just learn to appreciate what others can do.
Lorraine Armour, now an educator in Virginia, spent years in Arivaca when her children were young. A quilt hangs on the wall in the Library to remind us of her tenure here. Lorraine majored in art in college, where she focused on 3-dimensional art and clay, but later on found fabric more to her liking. She made quilts, fabric dolls, pillows, and holiday things. She considers herself a crafts person, not really an artist, but her contribution to the Arivaca art scene merits some discussion. She started the Main Street Artists’ Coop –she got 10 people together to contribute $50 each toward the rent of the same building it resides in now. Those people included Deborah Steinberg, Hawk and Patti Lopez, Ellen Dursema, Nancy and Robert Fricchione. Familiar names in the Arivaca art scene. Before that time there was a group of people who got together to draw, and to draw on each other’s talent and enthusiasm. It was dynamic times, Lorraine said, and it revolved around getting the children involved in art and music and drama. Then Nina Baldridge moved here and started the dance and drama activities, which eventually became very professional. “The children all had parts in the plays, ” Lorraine remembers, “and it was so amazing. You can’t imagine what an asset it is for these little rural children to be exposed to that kind of real culture. There were a lot of selfless people who donated time and energy. ” And it was not dependent on having so much money, but having the time to devote to the creative process, with artistic persons like Lorraine willing to share and teach.
More about artists next month.
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