Gallery

I LOVE PAINTING by Nadine Block

As a child in a one-room rural school in Wisconsin, I spent hours looking through a box of 3×5 inch cards with a picture of art on one side and a story about the artist on the other. That was where I learned to enjoy art and artists. Teachers had 40-60 first through eighth grade students and there was little time for teaching art. I studied art photos and doodled and drew pictures with one of my friends. Later in life, art became an itch I wanted to scratch.

When I became an adult, I was able to travel. My favorite places to visit were art museums. I collected art and handicrafts from all over the world. So far, I have traveled to 65 countries many of them to off-the-main-road places…Chile, Cambodia, Tunisia, Mali, Nepal, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea. When I traveled, I used my travel photos mixed among my illustrations in writing stories for my grandchildren. When they were little, I often wrote stories about animals who had to meet challenges like ” Corey the Camel in Timbuktu” (Corey led a job action to better the life of camels) and “Casey the Cat in Kathmandu” (Casey was our tour guide in Nepal and wanted to travel with us photographing mouseholes all over the world). As the children grew older, I wrote and illustrated stories that incorporated history and geography like “George and the Lizard,” a story about a visit to the Pueblo Indian Reservation.

When I retired in 2010, I had a plan. I would scratch the itch of art and learn how to draw and paint. But art instruction was put off for three years while I published two books about some of my life’s work, ending corporal punishment of children. That done, I jumped into art and began taking 6-9 hours a week of classes in drawing and painting at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center and with local artists.

My first independent exhibit, “Travel Series 2016” took place on March 25th, 2016 at the Cultural Arts Center, Columbus, Ohio. Painting about my travels from photos helped me enjoy my trips all over again. I sold five paintings at the event. Since then I have exhibited at student/faculty exhibitions at the Cultural Art Center and at the Concourse Gallery in Upper Arlington. In a juried competition, my oil painting “Fall Blooms” was chosen as one of 10 public art displays in Upper Arlington. My painting is displayed as a cling art poster on a utility box on Tremont Road on the North corner of Tremont Elementary School.

In the last twelve years, art and writing have been my companions, each enriching my life.  I have been studying figure drawing and oil and acrylic painting. I have taken classes at the Cultural Arts Center as well as from local artists like Michal McEwan, Vivian Ripley, Joe Lombardo and Mary Jane Ward.  I mostly do abstract landscapes and travel memories.

All proceeds from the book sales go to the U.S. Alliance to End Hitting of Children for positive discipline education programs.