Page 28 - the NOISE April 2015

28 • APRIL 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
ARTSBRIEFS:
NOSTALGIA WITH A TWIST
The Southwestern highways are full of bleak, beige desert that seems to stretch into infinity, but the space in between is scattered with strange and gloomy oases of old-timey personality which masks it’s beauty within the cracks and broken neon signs. Linda Shearer- Whiting captures the short-fallen grandeur of places like the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona.
Many of Ms. Shearer-Whiting’s artistic influences seem to come from her unique childhood. She grew up on a shabby farm without electricity in central Alberta, Canada. Her father, a self-taught artist painted west- ern, cowboy-esque scenes on everything — even the insides of their cupboards. He would take the family on road trips all around the US and Canada in a pick-up truck with a homemade camper painted by her father with a scene of a cowboy’s camp with a wolf looking hungrily down at him from a cliff.
The women in her family also influenced the painter’s artistic style. Her mother worked in truck stop diners where Ms. Shearer-Whiting would eat at exclusively when she was young. Her grandmother would make food, mixing ingredients — which sound questionable
when put together. A favorite recipe of her grandmother’s was called Mock Salmon — peanut butter, corn flake cereal and tomato soup. “I guess it’s kind of like a vegetarian meat loaf. It was in one of those World War II how to cook without meat, ration cook books,” said Ms. Shearer-Whiting. Her grandmother’s cooking became the influence for her bad food art. When she decides to create a bad food piece, she makes the food, paints it and then doesn’t eat it — sometimes even her cat won’t.
She majored in printmaking in college, and then moved to Phoenix in the early 80s where she became an art teach- er at a low-income school. The kids she taught and the financial limitations of the school she worked at stimulated her imagination. Her job as a schoolteacher gave Ms. Shearer-Whiting summers off. She would come up to Flagstaff where she would make up for all of the time she missed working on her art during the school year. Flagstaff became a kind of sanctuary for her. She would sketch the sky, the San Francisco Peaks and all of the quirks of downtown that make Flagstaff the unique city it is. Flagstaff reminds Ms. Shearer-Whiting of her home back in Alberta. “I love the skies up here, because I grew up on the prairies of Alberta with the same kind of big giant skies,” she recalled. It’s a fitting place to end up for someone who bases much of her artistic work on the bizarre remnants of the past.
Northern View Artist Studio is where Ms. Shearer-Whiting predominantly shows her work. It is located at 7 E Aspen Ave, Studio 5. In April she will be showing her “At the Table,” artwork at AZ Handmade/Fire on the Mountain Gallery, 13 N. San Francisco in April. NorthernViewStudio.com
ESSENTIAL POLLINATORS HONORED
This April West of the Moon Gallery is debuting a new theme for a group show “Essential Guard- ians” to honor pollinators. Some artists contribut- ing original works of art to this show are Connie Townsend, Greg Hill, Joni Pevarnik, Elaine Dilling- ham, Charmagne Coe and Sandy Thybony, as well as other artists from Flagstaff and the surrounding area.
Carolyn Young, matron
of West of the Moon, tells
me why she decided to in-
troduce this theme. “I think
that it is so important to
bring the loss of the bees,
butterflies, bats, to the at-
tention of the mainstream,”
she expresses. “The loss of
our pollinators effects all of
the creatures on the planet.
A lot of people may have
heard of Colony Collapse
Disorder, the disease that
is killing off so many bees,
but what they may not realize is that when they choose to purchase Roundup and other neonics, that they are indeed contributing to their loss and have the potential to negatively effect the bees, creatures, humans and our planet, in general. There are many theories as to why the pollinators are disappearing but pesticides seem to be a gigantic part of the problem. I would just like to see people become more aware of this huge problem & begin to deal with it in a different way. When the pollinators are wiped out, life, as we know it, is going to be very different.” Ms. Young encourages readers to research natural ways of diverting pests from their gardens and lawns. “There are alternative