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Thursday, October 2, 2008
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Home is where the art is Maria Thompson Seep doesn't have to travel far to find something worth painting Entertainment Editor NISSWA - Maria Thompson Seep's heart has always resided along Nokomis Avenue in Nisswa, and a lot of her art comes from there, too.
Seep, one of the artists featured in the current Brainerd High School Alumni Arts Exhibition at the Franklin Arts Center, paints in a house once owned by her grandmother. It's not far from her childhood home and the family cabin on Gull Lake.
"It's sort of in me," Seep said of the up-north landscapes and waterscapes she regularly paints. "No matter where I've lived, I've felt I need to be near water, because it really is important to me. There's just something about this area. I've lived in the city, I've lived in the country and I feel like this is where I should be."
If you go
What: Brainerd High School Alumni Arts Exhibition.
When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday and Saturday.
Where: Gallery 119, Franklin Arts Center, 1001 Kingwood St., Brainerd.
Phone: 829-4126.
Maria Thompson Seep
Nisswa artist
Favorite artist: Vincent van Gogh.
Favorite TV show: "Life."
Favorite movies: "A River Runs Through It" and the remake of "The Thomas Crown Affair."
Favorite musician: Mary Chapin Carpenter.
Favorite book: "Out Stealing Horses" by Per Petterson.
Hobbies: Reading, relaxing in her hammock and going to the beach.
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Seep was born and raised in Nisswa and graduated from BHS in 1979. She studied art at Brainerd Community College - taking watercolor classes from Evelyn Matthies, the curator of the alumni exhibit - and the University of Minnesota. She took a year off from the U to live in Florence, Italy, where the scenery provided a striking contrast to the north woods.
"I went there to study the art and culture and just to live there," said Seep, who moved from Ramsey back to Nisswa in 2005. "For some reason, I think I was absorbing more than producing. There's art everywhere - on street corners, on the corners of homes; everything is ancient.
"I think about my experience there every day. It really had an impression on me, just to be away from home in some place so different."
Despite all the great Italian Renaissance painters, Seep is more drawn to Dutchman Vincent van Gogh. Even when she was taking art classes at BHS, Seep's style veered toward Impressionism.
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Although Maria Thompson Seep doesn't feature human beings in her paintings, her dog, Jet, makes a cameo every now and then. Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls
» Purchase reprints of this photo.
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"I love van Gogh," she said. "There's something about his landscapes and his artistic voice that I like. There's sort of a loneliness in there, and I think I try to convey that sort of feeling. So probably my earliest influence was the Impressionists, because when you start out, you're not that skilled for detail work.
"I gradually evolved into detailed work, and in the middle of my artistic development, I was only doing pen-and-ink work. But now I've been back to painting for many years."
Seep primarily paints with oils in her home studio, but she sketches and takes reference photographs on location, whether it's a beach on Gull Lake, a field of tall grass near her parents' house in Pequot Lakes or a tree-lined lake in the Boundary Waters. Her husband, Jim, enjoys fishing up there, so the couple's hobbies nicely coincide.
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Maria Thompson Seep works out of a studio in her home in Nisswa. She usually paints on small canvases, and much of her work features scenes of woods and lakefronts. Brainerd Dispatch/Steve Kohls
» Purchase reprints of this photo.
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"That's Lake Vermilion," she said, pointing to a striking work of blues and blacks on a large canvas. "We stayed at this beautiful place on Black Bay. I hiked up this hill. It was so beautiful there, and so quiet and devoid of people, which is what I like."
Whether she's experimenting with a large canvas or doing her typical small paintings for the notecards she sells, Seep never paints people. As a teenager, horses were her first subject matter, and now her dog, Jet, makes cameos in her work, but human beings don't exist in her creations.
Still, she wouldn't be an artist if it weren't for the encouragement she got from others.
"Both my mom and dad (Nancy and Harold Thompson) are creative people," said Seep, who works part time at the Brainerd Public Library. "I consider my dad to be an artist with the refinishing of boats, and my mom did furniture refinishing, made crafts and sewed.
"My parents never, ever discouraged me from having a creative side. And even when there have been times in my life where I haven't been able to do my art because I've been working full time, I always went back to it. I always felt like it was there, and I think that's because I was never discouraged by anybody."
JOHN HANSEN may be reached at john.hansen@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5863.
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