Tamara Browning: Turning dog rescue into an art form - The State Journal-Register
Artist JILL FLINN of Glasgow, Mo., creates artwork inspired by rescued dogs. That in turn provides a way for her to keep rescuing abandoned domestic animals.
Having designed and created bas-relief sculpture paintings since 1990, Jill uses funds raised through the sale of her mixed media/ sculpted paintings in paperclay and acrylics to pay for an out-of-pocket, no-kill shelter for dogs.
Jill and her husband, Steve Flinn, have 21 dogs on a 260-acre farm with row crops, creeks, ponds and woods — "kind of dog heaven," Jill says. Her art is animal- and nature-inspired.
"We have a lot of instances where the wildlife kind of interact with our dogs," Jill says.
One piece that was inspired by that interaction is "Field Frolic," which shows dogs and birds running around.
"When my husband mows (the yard), the birds follow him, and the mower kicks up insects which the birds in turn feed to their young," Jill says.
"One year, we had a drought, and he wasn't mowing very often, but the birds figured out that if they got the dogs chasing them, the dogs would kick up the insects in the field."
That went on for several weeks like clockwork, with the dogs looking for the birds that would swoop down for the half-hour-long pursuit.
"It's kind of neat to get to see it firsthand how wildlife and domestic animals interact," Jill says.
Jill's art will be among those sold during ART SPECTACULAR, a juried fine art fair to be held from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11, at Washington Park, Chatham Road and Fayette Avenue. The fair will be free and accessible (no pets).
Participating artists will include those displaying jewelry, pottery, fused glass, glass mixed media, fiber, decorative painting and photography.
Jill's booth will include the "Book of Dogs," photos of dogs rescued through the years.
"This fun thing they like to do, of course, is dig, so I have a lot of pictures of them with just their front end is underground and their backend is above ground. We call them 'landscape architects' because they're always digging away," Jill says.
Jill's art is two-dimensional.
"If you look at it from the wall, it looks 2-D, but then when you look closer, you see the depth. ... (It's) textural and dimensional," she says.
"It is for the wall, so you don't walk around it. That's always a misconception in a lot of art shows when they put down '3-D art and 2-D art.' I used to teach art and 3-D art meant that you walked completely around a piece."
Jill's painting technique developed from a desire for more depth of surface texture. Each piece begins as an original relief sculpture in paperclay, a sculpting compound. Some of the sculptures are cast in paperclay and polyurethane. All are original acrylic paintings.
"I did a piece of a dog kind of leaping through a field with flowers on its back, kind of a potted plant of flowers, because dogs just deliver joy," Jill says.
"So, when you take someone flowers, you deliver them joy, and this way, the piece kind of spoke to that."
Jill calls her art and rescue endeavors "a circle of giving."
Jill says: "These dogs, all they want is a good home, and why not use them as subject matter and then the subject matter goes back into the dog rescue funds, which is ... how we fund it anyway is out of our own pocket, which is funded by the art."
For more information about Art Spectacular, visit www.carillon-rees.org.
Tamara Browning is a columnist and feature writer for The State Journal-Register. She can be reached at 788-1534 or tamara.browning@sj-r.com.
01 Sep, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFshJuA39m1YmcMFHDQ-BG8BKvaGA&url=http://www.sj-r.com/features/x1638736166/Tamara-Browning-Turning-dog-rescue-into-an-art-form
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