Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Link
Please visit the Indianapolis Art Center website here for the "Two Worlds, One Language Through Art" online (and interactive!) journal. Flip through the pages for images, exhibition information, links, and more.
"Two Worlds, One Language Through Art" Awards Ceremony
Becky Fehsenfeld on stage at the awards ceremony that took place at the Indianapolis Art Center on Saturday, June 28th 2008.
Becky and Jim Fehsenfeld on stage at the awards ceremony that took place at the Indianapolis Art Center on Saturday, June 28th 2008.
WFYI Public Television Interview with Becky Fehsenfeld: Two Worlds, One Language Through Art at the Indianapolis Arts Center
Please click on the link below to watch the video.
http://www.wfyi.org/wvx/AllAccess2008.wvx
The segment of this program with Becky's interview is between 19:20 - 22:54.
Streaming video is provided by WFYI in partnership with IHETS.
http://www.wfyi.org/wvx/AllAccess2008.wvx
The segment of this program with Becky's interview is between 19:20 - 22:54.
Streaming video is provided by WFYI in partnership with IHETS.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Becky's Essay on Chinese Culture
My excursion into the Chinese culture travels on a thread woven into my life over 30 years. Traveling abroad as a young art major in college was an enchanting time, rich in visual and emotional experiences. I found myself elevated into unfamiliar arenas. Each culture seemed to posses a varied approach to life, music, politics and art. In a span of two years I journeyed around the world painting and studying with university peers on a ship with a Chinese crew. Each day was new, each culture diverse. There were amazing similarities as well. Art was an open door between the sharp edges of nations. In the visual blurring of boundaries I found points of entry into otherwise alien communities. The intervening moments at sea were opportunities to learn about the Chinese culture. You see, the times in which I studied China it was a closed nation. The closest I could come were the rural outskirts of Hong Kong called the New Territories. For thirty years I have gazed across those fields into a visual mystery.
The people of China were to become more and more familiar. In the year following graduation, I was invited to work as a purser on the same ship. There were no students this time. I was to be the only girl and only American in the crew. I lived in the officers’ quarters, ate only with chopsticks, and was naïve enough to think I could master the language. There were seven dialects on board. I mastered none. That year brought me moments of triumph and isolation. It stands today as one of the more important moments of personal growth in my life. Stepping outside my world to become a minority, I would forever after respectfully empathize with those who do the same, the immigrants, the visitors, the curious. I remain grateful for the protective kindness and patience the Chinese captain and crew afforded me.
Three decades later, China has been open for some time. Faces at home reflect diversity, among them a growing Asian population. I wonder how it’s been for them on their journey westward. Business has taken our family eastward and a thread has once again begun to weave itself into my world. Several years ago while working in my gallery I was introduced to a lovely woman from China, perhaps my age, here on business in the United States. It had been an unusual day for her. At the end of the seminar, participants were asked to explain how he or she felt about the discussion.
She didn’t know what to say, having never been asked to express her feelings in this manner. We talked about my paintings. Now she asked the questions and my answers inevitably dealt with feelings. The execution of every piece I create is deeply connected to feelings, the manner, material, stroke or palate knife move from that central place. She asked for a brochure and returned to China presenting it to an art professor at the Shandong College of Arts. The professor was a long-lost childhood friend rediscovered. An invitation to lecture on my work followed, allowing me three decades later, to finally go to China beyond the New Territories. I was showered with kindness and humbled to see the excellent quality of the professors’ work. Their pieces were beautiful and varied and I so wanted to share the experience at home in a place of distinction and beauty, that embraces cultural diversity and celebrates quality art and artists. That place was the Indianapolis Art Center which thrives by what they call serendipity.
I looked up the word “serendipity” today. It said, “a seeming gift for finding good things accidentally.” The beautiful threads of my life are indeed serendipitous. These graceful accidents were sewn with the help of family, artists, friends, professors and business colleagues, from both sides of the world.
Becky Hall Fehsenfeld
The people of China were to become more and more familiar. In the year following graduation, I was invited to work as a purser on the same ship. There were no students this time. I was to be the only girl and only American in the crew. I lived in the officers’ quarters, ate only with chopsticks, and was naïve enough to think I could master the language. There were seven dialects on board. I mastered none. That year brought me moments of triumph and isolation. It stands today as one of the more important moments of personal growth in my life. Stepping outside my world to become a minority, I would forever after respectfully empathize with those who do the same, the immigrants, the visitors, the curious. I remain grateful for the protective kindness and patience the Chinese captain and crew afforded me.
Three decades later, China has been open for some time. Faces at home reflect diversity, among them a growing Asian population. I wonder how it’s been for them on their journey westward. Business has taken our family eastward and a thread has once again begun to weave itself into my world. Several years ago while working in my gallery I was introduced to a lovely woman from China, perhaps my age, here on business in the United States. It had been an unusual day for her. At the end of the seminar, participants were asked to explain how he or she felt about the discussion.
She didn’t know what to say, having never been asked to express her feelings in this manner. We talked about my paintings. Now she asked the questions and my answers inevitably dealt with feelings. The execution of every piece I create is deeply connected to feelings, the manner, material, stroke or palate knife move from that central place. She asked for a brochure and returned to China presenting it to an art professor at the Shandong College of Arts. The professor was a long-lost childhood friend rediscovered. An invitation to lecture on my work followed, allowing me three decades later, to finally go to China beyond the New Territories. I was showered with kindness and humbled to see the excellent quality of the professors’ work. Their pieces were beautiful and varied and I so wanted to share the experience at home in a place of distinction and beauty, that embraces cultural diversity and celebrates quality art and artists. That place was the Indianapolis Art Center which thrives by what they call serendipity.
I looked up the word “serendipity” today. It said, “a seeming gift for finding good things accidentally.” The beautiful threads of my life are indeed serendipitous. These graceful accidents were sewn with the help of family, artists, friends, professors and business colleagues, from both sides of the world.
Becky Hall Fehsenfeld
Welcome...
Welcome to the Becky Fehsenfeld Fine Art Blog.
Becky Fehsenfeld has been painting since she was eight years old. She was raised in an artistic atmosphere with two sisters, both of whom are also painters. Becky attended Otterbein College on an art scholarship, receiving her BFA in Fine Arts, concentration in painting, and a minor in cultural anthropology. She has studied and painted in over sixty countries, and traveled the globe as an artist, capturing cultures, landscapes, wildlife, and figures on canvas in a color-filled, expressive manner.
Becky was selected for the U.S. ART cover feature "Top 25 Artists in America You Should Know Something About", in August of 2000. She is also a member of the Oil Painters of America, Connecticut Pastel Society, Pastel Society of Eastern Canada, the Indiana Artists` Club, the Hoosier Salon, the Board of Directors of the Indianapolis Art Center, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She currently maintains the Becky Fehsenfeld Fine Art Gallery in the village of Zionsville, Indiana, and her award-winning paintings are included in numerous private and corporate collections.
Artwork can be viewed at http://www.beckyfehsenfeld.com. For more information or to purchase a Fehsenfeld original or hand-embellished Monoprint, please contact the gallery director at director@beckyfehsenfeld.com or by phone at 317-732-0026.
Check back soon, there's more to come...
Becky Fehsenfeld has been painting since she was eight years old. She was raised in an artistic atmosphere with two sisters, both of whom are also painters. Becky attended Otterbein College on an art scholarship, receiving her BFA in Fine Arts, concentration in painting, and a minor in cultural anthropology. She has studied and painted in over sixty countries, and traveled the globe as an artist, capturing cultures, landscapes, wildlife, and figures on canvas in a color-filled, expressive manner.
Becky was selected for the U.S. ART cover feature "Top 25 Artists in America You Should Know Something About", in August of 2000. She is also a member of the Oil Painters of America, Connecticut Pastel Society, Pastel Society of Eastern Canada, the Indiana Artists` Club, the Hoosier Salon, the Board of Directors of the Indianapolis Art Center, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She currently maintains the Becky Fehsenfeld Fine Art Gallery in the village of Zionsville, Indiana, and her award-winning paintings are included in numerous private and corporate collections.
Artwork can be viewed at http://www.beckyfehsenfeld.com. For more information or to purchase a Fehsenfeld original or hand-embellished Monoprint, please contact the gallery director at director@beckyfehsenfeld.com or by phone at 317-732-0026.
Check back soon, there's more to come...
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