Painter’s love of color shows on each canvas

Published 12:58 pm Thursday, June 19, 2008

Like writers who brave the blank screen, artist Christina Harvey confidently approaches the barren palette.

“White canvas doesn’t scare me,” Harvey said. “I just love it.”

Harvey demonstrates that love and poise in her acrylic paintings through her cheerful and soothing colors and the confident way she sometimes dips into the whimsical by throwing in a blue tree as part of a landscape or creating a field of sheep that are a tad bit too fluffy.

Harvey is approaching her first-ever Art in the Barn festival with that same confidence.

She was a spectator at last year’s Art in the Barn and just going to the show made her a convert. She immediately joined the Arlington Arts Council.

“I loved the energy and loved the people and I thought I could get into this,” she said.

This is the fourth year for Art in the Barn, the free fine arts show presented by the Arlington Arts Council and uniquely set up in a working hay barn.

That barn belongs to arts council secretary and painter Monica Yantis, who moves the hay out of the way for the festival.

Art in the Barn was born when the newly formed Arlington Arts Council sought a way to give area artists more exposure. Yantis had the barn, so she decided to open it to artists and the public.

Being in a barn comes in handy when it’s raining. And patrons seem to enjoy the excuse to get out in the country, Yantis said.

“It’s fine art, but it’s still an informal gathering,” she said. “It’s an awareness that art exists in the area … and it’s an opportunity for some of the younger artists to expose their work and get used to what it is to set up and sit there and have people go ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ or ‘I could do that.’ “

Harvey said she’s ready to hear the feedback.

At 58 and retired from a career as a technical illustrator and graphic designer, Harvey said she now paints every day, keeping her themes simple.

“I’m not a realist,” Harvey said. “I like to work more toward expressionist, that’s where I’m going. I want my work to be looser and more my interpretation; otherwise you can just take a picture.”

For Art in the Barn, Harvey said she’s showing at least 38 pieces, perhaps 12 originals and six or seven giclees, high-quality prints that will include barns, landscapes and nature scenes — all done in acrylics.

Harvey explained her love of acrylics as an experience that gives her an immediate connection of paint brush to canvas.

“What you do is what you get,” she said. “My art is the joy of color. The fun, beauty and magic in scenes and simple objects around us all and in our imaginations.”

Reporter Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@heraldnet.com