Eleanor Michonski uses art as a way to capture big feelings and the small, meaningful moments that make up people’s lives.
From a piece about meeting her first grandchild, to a sketch of a mother giving her baby a bath and a crisp photograph of a woman enjoying a pint of beer, she says her works have a lot of depth to them.
“My work seems to be very heartfelt,” says Michonski, 80. “I’m not one to do ‘pretty pictures’ — I do pictures of people’s feelings.”
Michonski, who lives in Shelby Township, says her self-taught art career began when she was a young child, melting crayons on her mother’s radiator to see what happened.
“It was not met with a lot of excitement by my mother,” Michonski laughed. But it was the start of playing with unique materials to make art.
Her creative approach to painting, sketching and photography is unconventional. Before retiring, Michonski used to create drawings on call cards with highlighters in the office where she worked as a manufacturing agency purchasing agent. She would capture something meaningful she’d noticed on her commute, like people selling roses on the street, and later digitally enlarging her sketch at a color printer.
Michonski found inspiration from one of her mentors, the late Helen Cuniff of Lake Orion, who helped guide her to create. She also took some classes at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit under artist Vidvuds Zviedris, who formerly taught there.
She continues to create, making do with any material she has available to capture a potential still-life moment she sees. For example, on a trip to Italy, she saw a moment she wanted to capture and did a sketch with an eyebrow pencil and “ink” she created by chewing anise candy.
“I can’t explain my technique,” Michonski says.
“No. STILL LIFE,” Michonski’s one-woman show at Lawrence Street Gallery features some of her paintings, sketches and photography. She delved into art while coping with multiple family members’ struggles with depression.
“We’ve suffered through depression, a horrible thing to experience,” Michonski says. “Years and years of trying to find good help.”
Some of her works capture those feelings of sadness and anguish, which she hopes can help break the stigma against mental illness. But for this show, the focus is on other feelings, ones she says are sometimes too much to share.
On exhibit through Sept. 30, “No. STILL LIFE” is about how life goes on — so the show’s title has a double meaning — and how despite the inevitable sadness and hardship, things keep moving forward.
“Despite all the things going on — hurricanes, fires, Afghanistan — we need to find a place of faith,” Michonski says.
“My painting is unorthodox, my feelings are true,” she adds. “It’s a decent show, I’m proud of it and want people to see it.”
If You Go
“No. STILL LIFE: Art Work By Eleanor Michonski” is on display noon-5 p.m. Thurs. and Sat.; noon-9 p.m. Fri.; 1-5 p.m. Sun., Sept. 3-30 at Lawrence Street Gallery, 22620 Woodward Ave. Suite A, Ferndale. Visit lawrencestreetgallery.com or call 248-544-0394.
"artist" - Google News
September 04, 2021 at 12:27AM
https://ift.tt/3DMq2yP
Shelby Township artist brings emotion-filled pieces to Ferndale gallery - The Oakland Press
"artist" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FwLdIu
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Shelby Township artist brings emotion-filled pieces to Ferndale gallery - The Oakland Press"
Post a Comment