Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 17, 1993 TAG: 9312160008
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
"You've got to look closer," she says. "You just can't look at the window dressing, you've just got to look deeper."
Jordan, a resident of Shawsville, joins 80 local artists and artisans in displaying her work at the Gallery of Local Artists, now in its fifth year.
The gallery, at 1901 S. Main St. in the former Sycamore South restaurant, has everything from brooches to tunics, stained glass and sculpture, paintings, postcards, photographs and filigree.
Prices range from 35 cents for a postcard to $6,000 for an alabaster sculpture and fit all budgets in between.
"Not everybody can buy a $900 painting, but a lot of people can buy a $20 to $40 piece of pottery," says coordinator Nell Frederickson, who works in stained glass and silver.
The gallery, housed in donated space and staffed by the artists, takes a 20 percent commission for expenses.
Professional and part-time artists show at the gallery. Sylvia Wong, who has both Chinese and Western-style watercolors on display, put her love of painting on hold until six years ago.
When she was a child in China she drew Vivian Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor on the back of her notebooks, but raising two boys took all her attention for a while.
"You have children, family's always first," she said. Although painting has become more central to her life, "I can't say I'm an artist. As an Oriental, I always feel I want to do better. We're supposed to be humble and modest and are brought up in that kind of culture.
"When we go back to the Orient, I always go back and find an artist and study under masters."
Pam Tyrell, a textile designer in Floyd, learned at her mother's side in Brooklyn. Her velvet multihued clothes seem ephemeral, but she reassured potential consumers, "My work tends to look more fragile than it is. Even though it looks real delicate, it has a durability." And it's machine washable.
Tyrell and Jordan question the dichotomy of arts and crafts. "What isn't art?" Jordan asks rhetorically. "I am art, as Salvador Dali would say," Tyrell says, fingering an imaginary handlebar mustache.
Jordan sees the denigration of crafts as part of a pattern of sexism in the art community. "When I went into wildlife art, the one thing I absolutely refused to do was cutesy female," she said. "I'm a woman, I'm proud of it. I'm a woman artist, and I'm proud of that. But first of all, I'm an artist, and I want to be seen that way. It's so much easier for men to get ahead, especially in wildlife/Western."
Despite the obstacles, Jordan began working full time as an artist four years ago.
"I started when I could hold a pencil," she said. "I drew on the back of a church bulletin, and they haven't been able to get that pencil out of my hand since.
"You ever get up in the morning, and you see the must and the sun coming through it and it just makes you feel, `I'm glad to be alive'?
"That's what I try to create on paper. I can relive it. I can introduce it to other people."
How does she describe her art? "It's nice," she says, bluntly. "Buy it."
The Gallery of Local Artists, 1901 S. Main St., Blacksburg, is open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday through December. It's closed Christmas Day.
by CNB