{"id":52697,"date":"2003-06-19T17:57:28","date_gmt":"2003-06-19T23:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=52697"},"modified":"2020-03-19T18:03:52","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T00:03:52","slug":"no-longer-the-neighborhood-watercolorist-words-with-shanna-kunz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/no-longer-the-neighborhood-watercolorist-words-with-shanna-kunz\/","title":{"rendered":"No Longer the Neighborhood Watercolorist Words with Shanna Kunz"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The following are snatches of conversation between Shanna Kunz, Shawn Rossiter, Steve Coray, \u00a0and Brandon Cook at the Eccles Community Art Center on June 2nd. The occasion is the hanging of Kunz\u2019s one-person show to open that Friday, June 6th. The artists have come together to talk about art; hang pictures; shoot images. Cook, Kunz\u2019s studio partner, is taking his one-man show down while Kunz is bringing hers in. Both take advantage of the opportunity to have Coray shoot slide and digital images of their work.<\/span><\/small><\/i><\/p>\n

Setting: Beautiful sunny day, sunlight coming through windows. A mess of paintings, cords and lights fills the Art Center. Staff tries their best to stay out of the way and not rush the artists along.<\/p>\n

Rossiter, Coray and Cook are busy removing paintings from walls and placing them on an easel to be shot.<\/p>\n

Enter Kunz, laden with work.<\/i>
\n
\n<\/b><\/span>ROSSITER<\/b>\u00a0:\u00a0(offering a hand)<\/i>\u00a0So, how do you feel emotionally about this show you\u2019re about to put up?<\/span><\/p>\n

KUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0It\u2019s a pretty big deal. To have a good, solid show in my hometown.<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, I started out as a watercolorist, a little, almost decorative watercolorist years and years ago. Then I went down to Snow College and took a design workshop and some figure classes and then I thought \u201cNo I don\u2019t want to be this decorative painter.\u201d So I went back to school in Logan to study with Adrian Van Suchtelens, juggling that with teaching and kids and grandkids. And it was really hard work. When people have seen your work before and have known you as a certain decorative artist . . . well it was really important to show who I was.<\/p>\n

<\/span>ROSSITER:<\/b>\u00a0This is kind of your ten-year reunion and you have to show your classmates what you\u2019ve done?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

KUNZ:\u00a0<\/b>Yeah, I\u2019ve worked really really hard to try and be substantial. To do something substantial. I\u2019ve worked really hard at it.<\/span><\/p>\n

COOK:<\/b>\u00a0She\u2019s no longer the neighborhood watercolorist\u00a0(interjected as he passes by, painting in hand).<\/i><\/span>
\n
\nROSSITER:\u00a0<\/b>So, what\u2019s the time span of this work you\u2019re bringing in?<\/p>\n

KUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0Most of them were done in the past two or three months.<\/p>\n

COOK:\u00a0<\/b>Yeah, she\u2019s cranked out a lot of stuff.
\n<\/i>
\nKUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0It\u2019s been insane.<\/span>
\n
\nROSSITER:<\/b>\u00a0So it looks like the majority of these are oil paintings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>KUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0Yeah, I\u2019m loving it. I am completely in love with oils. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the challenge, or the viscosity, or what, but I never thought I would ever be able to give up my watercolors.<\/span>
\n(pointing to one piece propped against the wall)\u00a0<\/i>That\u2019s one of my very first oils. Painted real thin. Almost like a watercolor. I work the exact same way in watercolor as I do in oil. Glaze after glaze after glaze.<\/span><\/p>\n

ROSSITER:<\/b>\u00a0Why do you think that is?<\/span><\/p>\n

KUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0I\u2019m not sure. I don\u2019t know what is right and wrong in oils. Chris Terry [oil painter and instructor at Utah State University] never painted in front of us and Adrian [Van Suchtelens] never worked in oils. Through all my studying, no one ever said, \u201cThis is how you oil paint.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

ROSSITER:<\/b>\u00a0Does that make you nervous or does that make you glad?<\/span><\/p>\n

KUNZ:\u00a0<\/b>It makes my paintings look like my paintings. I don\u2019t know. It could be negative, it could be positive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because I\u2019ve watercolored for eleven years, the only thing I know how to do is \u201coil paint\u201d that way.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I first started oil painting my objective was to translate the watercolors into the oils. It was really important to me because no one took watercolors seriously and I really think they should.<\/span><\/p>\n

My watercolors are quite different than a traditional watercolor because they have a lot of color. My objective with watercolor has been to develop the space the same way an oil painter develops space. With watercolor you have to know your pigment, what will go over what, your sediment. Which makes me a very methodical worker. I already have the image assembled in my head before it ever goes to the paper or canvas. I build these parameters before I sit down to paint the painting.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>ROSSITER:\u00a0<\/b>So you don\u2019t think a change in medium has necessarily changed your work?<\/span><\/p>\n

KUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0Not really. Everything\u2019s about space \u2013 and I know you can\u2019t see it with watercolor because you\u2019re dealing with a piece of paper — but even with watercolor I\u2019m thinking of sediment and I\u2019m thinking of actual physical space. When I use my cobalts and my real heavy sediment paints there becomes an actual texture to it and a depth compared to the transparent paints. Now I can do that with oil paints and I can build things up. And I\u2019m just having so much fun with it.<\/span><\/p>\n

ROSSITER:\u00a0<\/b>So here you are, you wanted people to take watercolors seriously and you\u2019re giving them up.<\/span><\/p>\n

KUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0I think that in the long run I won\u2019t give them up. I think I\u2019m more on some little obsession right now. I think I owe that obsession as many years as what I\u2019ve given to watercolors.<\/span><\/p>\n

ROSSITER:\u00a0<\/b>You mentioned that in both cases your process is the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

KUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0Sometimes I despise the fact that I work so methodically . . . but I don\u2019t have it in me to do it another way. Every time I even try to do something different it still comes back.<\/span><\/p>\n

ROSSITER:<\/b>\u00a0Being methodical?<\/span><\/p>\n

KUNZ:<\/b>\u00a0Yes. I don\u2019t think my paintings are formula by any means but I\u2019m very methodical about approach. I run through my thumbnails, look at the notes — \u201cthis palette\u201d or \u201cthat palette\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because even before I go into the painting, I have an idea of what I want the overall feeling to be when you walk into it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not about each piece. Each piece is really important. They are the places I\u2019ve camped in my whole life \u2013 the Uintahs \u2013 and I\u2019ve been up there since I was a little girl and each place is important but the final image isn\u2019t. It\u2019s more about putting the whole group together and feeling it.<\/span><\/p>\n