Fran Friesen
Abstract Representational Artist
Creativity has been a part of my life since a young girl however painting has been the constant expression. I have worked in watercolor, oils, acrylics, mixed media, pencil, pencil crayons, decorative arts, ceramic arts and sculpture. I taught painting to adults for 10 years.
Although I have done art all my life, I did not go back to school to get my formal degree in art until midlife. I was looking for a broader expression of meaning in my art. For me, with all the angst we are bombarded with in the media, I feel compelled to bring respite to my viewers in a peaceful and beautiful way.
Caring for aging parents put brake on my painting. During this time I took up fly fishing and fly tying as a respite. That was 22 years ago. Both in the care giving and learning of bugs, fish and salmon in particular, I became increasingly aware of the cycle of life watching the various stages of their development. I had grown up on a farm and spent a lot of time in the woods and fields and ponds attentive to the flora and fauna around me. As an angler, I enjoyed being on lakes and rivers, turning over stones to look at bugs that the fish fed on. The flies I tied that imitated the various stages of the insect and fry patterns addressed my need for creativity at a time when care giving took over a large part of my life. The various aspects of fishing and tying found their way into my art. A commission of fifty enlarged super realistic fishing flies on large smooth river rocks took me 3 years to complete. I needed a change.
Recently, looking for something to re-energize my passion for painting, I looked into exploring abstraction. In my search I came across some works done with Alcohol Inks. I was impressed with the vibrancy and the free flowing nature of the medium. In the last year that has been the focus of my work, reflecting the colors and forms of nature in an abstracted way.