The painting that won the Dee Gee Watling Memorial Award for pastel this month has a dark mood and palette, which caught juror Joann Moser’s eye — the liberal use of black challenges the viewer’s expectations about pastel as a colorful medium, she said.
Capitola Halloween, by Holly Masri, was painted based on an old photograph that the artist just couldn’t get away from. We asked Holly to tell us more about her process, the medium of pastel, and the role of photography as a painter’s tool. It’s all in our Q&A, below.
Join us for the opening reception for this exhibit and Nick Xhiku’s “Structural Elements” tonight, September 12, at 6:30!
What was the inspiration for this piece? What made you return to this scene after so many years?
Holly Masri: This was one of those photographs that continually tugged at me, telling me that it really needed to be a painting! I lived above this restaurant/bar, called Margaritaville, in Capitola Village, CA, for a year and a half after I graduated from college. I’ve never been a bar person, and I’d never experienced anything like Capitola Village or Margaritaville. It’s a place where every day, practically everyone you see is on holiday. They’re just there to have a good time. It’s a great place for people-watching, which is something I tend to do anyway. And that evening, Halloween of 1986, I happened to be walking by that doorway and to have my camera with me. The view inside was so exotic, strange and arresting, that I just instinctively took the picture. That photograph followed me around, asking to be painted, for the next 20-odd years. I finally got around to doing it! Continue reading Q&A with Award Winner Holly Masri
