Light, Color, Composition

September 23, 2008 03:00 pm

— By Rebecca Kanan
She calls herself an “impatient realist.” When you see her art, you recognize immediately the realist part. But “impatient” …?
“I like to paint everything,” says Carthage artist Theresa Rankin. “I’ll get this feeling in my stomach that tells me I just have to paint [what she sees]. Even if I wait, the feeling won’t go away.”
Rankin ranges widely in choice of subject, although she seems most inspired by landscapes.
“It’s the light usually that will really grab my attention,” she says. “Then comes the color, and after that the composition… The painting takes on a life of its own once I get into it.”
Using oils allows her to paint the light right into her scenes. “There’s just something about the way light works on oils. It’s not the same in acrylics or watercolors,” she says, demonstrating with a finished landscape that springs to life in the room’s natural light.
California-born and frequently transplanted, Rankin says she knew she wanted to be an artist at age six: “I’ve always drawn since I was a little kid.”
Rankin received art scholarships and studied with various artists (“mentors”) in Hawaii, Utah, and Arizona, but it wasn’t until the past six or so years—after driving an 18-wheeler for ten years, hauling logs in Oregon, giving birth to five children in Hawaii, and working in Utah and Kansas--that she started doing more with her art.
“I looked at the fact that I was getting older and wouldn’t work forever,” she says. “And there was art. It was always there waiting for me…. So, seven or eight years ago, I said, ‘Okay, this is what you’re gonna do.’” Now, she paints for a minimum of four hours at a time.
She took some more lessons and “doors have opened. I’ve been fortunate,” says this grand- and great-grandmother.
When she isn’t painting at her home studio, she might be teaching at Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin or artCentral in Carthage—or she might be playing the piano to revive her creativity.
Her classes often focus on the potential in the individual. “I think I could teach anyone to draw,” says Rankin, whose students have been as young as 10 and as old as 82. “What happens when I teach is that I’ll see something in someone, and I will encourage them to go that route. I don’t want them to all paint just like me,” she says.
You have to express what you feel, she says, but learn the basics of composition, color, and control first.
“Everyone in the beginning when they start painting has the desire to recreate exactly as they see,” notes Rankin. “But after you start to study other artists and become familiar with other art, you get tired of what you’re doing and want to try other things. You veer toward a style of your own.”
Her own style has evolved into “realism with looseness,” which probably only comes about because of (despite her “impatient” label) her patience in blocking in the shapes of color and adding the details.
“Abstract was all the rage when I was in college,” Rankin recalls. “The teacher said, ‘Most people don’t understand abstract art; they have to be taught.’ A little bell went off in my head and I thought, ‘If you don’t like or respond to art, what good it is?’”
In this past half-decade, Rankin has garnered numerous awards and been invited to many juried art shows. A few of her honors include “Best Landscape” at the 2005 National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society; “High Seller” from 2005 to 2008 at the Richard Schmid Fine Art Auction (Schmid being one of her favorite painters); “Artists’ Choice” and “Best of Show” at the 2006 and 2007 Thomas Hart Benton Exhibition and Juried Competition; “Best in Oil” at the 2007 Artists of Northwest Arkansas Fall Regional Competition; and “Best of Show” at the 2008 Ozark Artists Alliance at John Brown University.
In addition to membership and workshop affiliation with Spiva and artCentral, Rankin belongs to the Artists of Northwest Arkansas and Eureka Springs Artists Guild , the Bartlesville Oklahoma Art Association, NOAPS, Oil Painters of America, The Academic Artists Association (and Artists Who Teach), and Landscape Artists International.
Rankin will be participating with 32 others painters, photographers, and sculptors at the 31st Annual Midwest Gathering of the Artists. The show itself is free to the public Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 13 and 14, at Memorial Hall in Carthage. On Friday, Sept. 12, an art auction and awards program will be held to benefit the artists and the MGA; tickets and more information are available from Sandy Higgins, MGA director, at 358-7163, 358-4041, or 1artangel@suddenlink.net.

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