THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502210089
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARLENE FORD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
At day's end, a pack of second-graders pushed down the school hallway as fast as they could. Their velocity was the same rate as their metabolism, and just slow enough to get a glancing view of the art hung above their eye-levels.
``That's the one. The picture with the big hand; my favorite,'' one said.
``Yeah, mine too,'' another answered at full trot.
What they were seeing was an airbrush, pencil and mixed media portrait of a young black male titled ``Step Off.'' An open hand, too big for the slender body, pushes out from the picture in a warning.
But as they rounded the corner a girl classmate critiqued, ``No, no. This one. This is the best.'' She waved both arms at a painting of a little girl about her age, but with a comic-like face dribbling water-melon.
That one, an airbrush and pencil titled ``Sunday Afternoon,'' is a warm remembrance of summer.
Faculty and parents pass through the same busy corridor, usually more slowly, but their remarks are much the same. They have favorites, they have questions. And all the while the artist sits quietly by, mostly unnoticed, taking it all in.
This month's exhibit at Cape Henry Collegiate School is by artist and faculty member Elginia McCrary.
Quietly thanking those who approached her, McCrary confided, ``I don't know what to think. I wondered a long time before I hung this show what people would say.'' She laughed and added, ``And even now when they're telling me, I'm still not positive that's what they're really thinking. You know how that is?''
After 25 years of raising two sons alone, working in substantial though not always creative jobs, McCrary is beginning again. ``Beginning again'' at age 46 is being what she had always known she would be - an artist.
``I've always been the type of person who tries to look at things realistically,'' she said. ``I knew for me I couldn't work as an artist and raise my family. No, I didn't anguish over it. I just knew what would work, and that I would get back to the art when it was the right time.''
McCrary was born and raised in South Norfolk. She attended the California College of Arts and Crafts. By age 19 she was married and soon after had two sons, now 26 and 24. After graduation and a stint in her own textile business, which was creative but not lucrative for the now-single mom, she turned her skills into technical illustration. She worked for an insurance company on the West Coast, free-lanced for ad agencies and, when she moved back to Virginia several years ago, was a draftsman for two engineering firms.
``When work was slow I'd doodle, and I always did drawings in my home for friends,'' McCrary said.
``The jobs were good jobs; sometimes they were boring,'' she groaned and nodded. ``I was always just waiting for the right time.
``And last year when my older son moved out, I stuffed my younger son into another room and their old room became my studio. I walked past that door for a long time and just looked in before I could finally make myself go inside and work,'' she said.
McCrary's exhibit is a tribute to a year's worth of work.
``Marcell'' is a watercolor of a friend's young son. ``Focus'' is a color pencil drawing of 4-year-old twins she knows and ``Unveiling'' is an air brush of an Egyptian mummy, slightly unwound and with one beguiling eye visible. One airbrush, ``Sunflower,'' is an acknowledgment to another 20th century American artist, Georgia O'Keeffe.
When urged to look for a thread that runs through the show, McCrary puzzled softly: ``The next show will have more of a focus. I'm thinking of some sort of series. The things people do in one day or in one life. Maybe I'll want one specific medium to work in.
``But I'll know more by the next show. This one was . . . Well, I'm just beginning again.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by
MARLENE FORD
Elginia McCrary, now a faculty member at Cape Henry Collegiate
School, put off her goal of being an artist while raising two sons
and doing technical illustrations for an insurance company, ad
agencies and engineering firms.
WHEN & WHERE
An art exhibit by Elginia McCrary at Cape Henry Collegiate School,
1320 Mill Dam Road, Everett Hall Gallery, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Monday through Friday through February. Free and open to the public.
Call 481-2446, Ext. 234.
by CNB