Patricia Gittins Vollmer

During college, I bought a Nikkormat camera and a light meter and drove to Alaska with a friend, determined to get the last photos of a pristine landscape before the Alaskan Pipeline invaded Prudhoe Bay.  I discovered lots more – that looking through a camera lens trains one’s eye to be hypersensitive to light, color, and balance.  I continued to photograph, write poetry, and experiment with various other media.  However, I fell in love with acrylics while taking a class at Maryville University. My instructor was more like a midwife, encouraging me to give birth to my subterranean urge for large scale color on canvas. I was almost afraid of how much I liked it.  I decided to put the urge on hold and finish my degree and pursue a job in education.

I put that urge on hold for a few years, and a few years more. I even taught art for a couple of years. Every time I visited a museum, a gallery, or saw other artists working, a little, then big, insistent voice would be there. I could spend a chapter on how I eventually gave birth, but the thing is, eventually one must honor the voice that says, “I know you.”

I paint abstract acrylics.  I love color and balance. I might be inspired by marsh grasses, monarch wings, or a bright yellow shirt flapping in the wind against a pure blue sky.  When the colors get to my canvas, they become abstracted and layered.  I find a certain vibrancy and juxtaposition of color that pulls me in and says,

Yes.