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I can remember when I was a toddler, back in the early
1950’s,
My Grandmother Mayme Jane Chapman and my father, Harold M. Chapman,
taught me how to first begin drawing birds and shapes, and then
painting those shapes onto ladder back chairs with bright oil-based
paints. My grandparents both taught school, my Dad was also very
talented in pen & ink line drawings, and charcoal.
Daddy died when I was 11 years old, and I do not have any of his
sketches, but if I did, I would certainly display them here. Aside
from being a wonderful father to me, his only child, he was a
well-known optometrist in Clarksburg and Webster Springs, West
Virginia.
Perhaps my family sensed the interest I had in sketching and painting,
because I remember receiving a drawing set for Christmas when I was
only 8 years old. You could almost say this was the beginning of a
lifelong desire, a strong and powerless desire, to experiment and
expand , using any materials available to me, trying to find my
‘niche’ as you will. However, that’s not been accomplished as of yet,
and maybe I’ll always just phase in and out of spending more time on
certain types of media instead of concentrating on one particular
avenue. How boring would it be to wear the same old dress day after
day, how weary we would become, so, wear it until you need to change
it, people will notice the change, instead of expecting the usual.
In the 7th Grade, I took my very first art course, receiving a prize
for the best still-life. We had to use chalk pastels, another media
which, from time to time, grabs me and says “hey, don’t forget about
me, “. If I only had a picture of every Card or picture I’ve created,
given away, sold, -- I’d have an extensive library of pictures.
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After joining the Harrison County, WV Watercolor Society, I had the
opportunity to spend many wonderful Saturdays in workshops across the
State, learning new techniques, or new techniques to me. The Society
held Art Shows, and I received an Honorable Mention for a pot of
geraniums on a porch with a stone wall and floor. At that show, I also
sold three paintings, making my efforts seem fruitful.
The love I have for oils goes back to my toddler days of learning to
paint those little Pennsylvania Dutch designs on those ladder back
chairs. I painted two reproduction Georgia O’Keeffe florals in oil for
a WVU sorority house, and now am working with oils once again on the
gourds I’m designing. It’s a glorious feeling to be able to go back
the next day and make changes if necessary, or build your paint layer
to layer. I never really had a studio where I could work on oils
without interruption or without disturbance, and my husband Tim just
arranged for me to have a studio space to work in where I can begin to
work in oils without the chance the picture will be damaged in the
process. I’m very anxious to have my own space. It’s necessary for all
women to have their ‘own space’ for whatever their reason.
My family knows that they have to allow me the time I need for my
creative outlet, but they all enjoy watching me work or hearing about
my latest project, or benefiting from it when I give them the things
I’ve made. My son Chris was amazed that the gourds he pulled out of
his trash pile from last year could clean up and look like they do.
Everybody says things like “Did you make that?” I say, no, I didn’t
MAKE it, I just embellished it, and made it into something useful for
the birds.
Johnna Stutler
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