Show: Viz City
Subject: Roger Weise
Date of Interview: July 18, 2017
Date of Broadcast: Wed. July 26, 2017
“Bathers & Boats” Exhibit Dates: July 21 - August 25, 2017
You’re listening to Viz City, KLCC’s Arts Review program.
Nothing says “summer” like a dip in a cool lake on a hot day. “Bathers and Boaters” is the summer show at Maude Kerns Art Gallery featuring Eugene artists Stan Byran, Mellisa Sikes and Roger Weise. I talked with Roger about the summery exhibit title: "One of my favorite themes are marine themes--boats, bathers, our relationship to water."
Roger says he likes to paint in a variety of mediums and styles, which you will see when you visit this show. "Some are very representational, copying right from nature, and other pieces are are are rather abstract and seen through the Roger Weise lens of exaggeration."
Roger has been an artist all of his adult life and now in his sixties, he still retains the enthusiasm for art he had at the beginning. "The need to create is very strong. It’s almost like, you get hungry for a meal, well, I get hungry to do art. It’s very basic. I’d probably starve to death if I didn’t do my art."
When I asked Roger about his sources of inspiration when he’s not on the water and drawing bathers and boats, he says he turns to his garden. "I’m a gardener; I love to garden. I love to draw from the garden. I love to draw plants. I love to paint watercolors in the garden."
The simple miracle of life is what attracts Roger to draw in his garden. "Planting a seed, letting that plant grow, mature and die. It’s the whole life cycle."
Roger’s next art project is to grow sunflowers from seed and then to draw and paint their entire life cycle. "Actually paint them and draw them from the time they’re seedlings to the time they’re leaning over and dying. I would like to capture that whole cycle."
This quintessential summer show also features the work of Stan Bryan and Melissa Sikes. Stan Bryan incorporates everyday objects in his balsa wood designs. Eugene artist Melissa Sikes captures the essence of summer in her expressive paintings of family and friends swimming in a lake and lounging on the lakeside dock of her family’s summer cabin.
And of course, don’t miss Roger Weise’s twenty-five pastels and watercolors shimmering with the colors and energy of bathers and boats. You can see the bright colors and vivid forms of Roger’s work at the “Bathers and Boats” exhibit showing at Maude Kerns Art Center, through Aug. 25.
Viz City is co-produced by Terry Way and Sandy Brown Jensen.
