The Spotlight October 30, 2009

In this week’s Spotlight meet Dolores Marusarz.  Since moving to the Coulee Region in 2000 she has painted much of the area’s local landscapes.  She also paints portraits, on a commission basis, is a juried member of East Bank Artists in La Crosse and The La Crosse Society of Arts and Crafts.  From 2003 to 2007 she was artist-in-residence at grade schools in Holmen and in Onalaska and in 2007 was choosen Artist Of The Year by The Womens Fund of La Crosse.  Her portraits and landcapes hang in museums and private collections throughout the United States.

Artist Statement
Brushes and paints and canvas speak more meaningfully than I do.  They speak in a language I do not have words for.  I make that claim in spite of the years I spent earning a Masters Degree in English and teaching English to college and high school students for sixteen years.  Perhaps the initiative for pursuing my education in English was for the very purpose of acquiring the knowledge of our language that would enable me to finally express myself in words.  It didn’t work.  More than ever before, in all the years I’ve bared my personal truth through my art, expressing myself this way is the only way I can really communicate with you.  How do I know when it’s working?  Partly through the words I hear, although they cannot touch the subtleties and depth of emotion even though we now have over a quarter of a million active words in English.  I have watched people as they look at my work–people who do not know I am the artist.  I have seen their expressions, the look in their eyes.  Can I describe that for you?  No–my words are too poor for describing that, but I know the language I see on their faces.  This lack of the right words has no doubt contributed to some unhappy moments in my life, yet also no doubt contributed to my ability to communicate through the realizations of my visions.  I just have to say it somehow.  Those realizations take their form in paintings:  their color or lack of it, the brush strokes I use, the forms and compositions and perspectives, the edges, the blending, and subject.  I hope that when you look at these things you feel the depth of emotion I put into them. (statement from Dolores’ website biography)

Dolores’ painting “Don’t Worry Dad, Everything Will Be Okay,” which was a nomination for The Alzheimers Association Poster, has been added to the local area  artists slide show. To see her painting and the artwork by 44 other local area artists, click on the Local Area Artists box below.