Acclaimed painter Marian Congdon wove this piece out of a “failed” art project. At a workshop this Friday, she shows folks how to turn their own discards into dynamic new works.
In her feature interview in last month’s Bold Life, Marian Congdon was refreshingly candid about the struggles that at first impeded — and then informed — her art career. A relocation from the thriving San Francisco Bay Area to a then-sleepy Hendersonville, raising a child with special needs (plus three other kids), and other exigencies of daily life meant she shelved her painting for years. “It felt like a part of me had died,” she told reporter Norm Powers.
But eventually Congdon found that her research in behavioral science, undertaken to help her autistic daughter, shaped her creative endeavors. And then a job teaching art at Immaculata Catholic School thrust her full-bore back into painting. Her work is both raw and scientific, inspired by graffiti sometimes, and at other times by mathematical precision.
In any case, Congdon knows the success that can arise from a fresh start. In an upcoming workshop at the Gallery at Flat Rock, she shows how she takes what she perceives as failed paintings and cuts them up, weaving the strips collage-like into new work. Attendees are asked to bring their own discarded art projects, magazines, and scrapbook materials and re-shape them in fresh forms.
“It’s a way to incorporate chance into the art process,” says Congdon.
The Weaving Series happens Friday, October 21, as part of the Gallery Hop program. 5-8pm. 2702-A Greenville Hwy., 828-698-7000, www.galleryflatrock.com.
