15 May Featured Artist Rhona Brandstater Hodgen
Show dates: May 23 to June 12, 2010
Rhona has found more time and greater opportunity for painting since a career change in 2009. Before that she had been widely known for over 30 years as a successful music teacher in the Inland Empire and earlier employed in the medical-scientific field.
Her two previous careers have provided insights into her new avocation. Her involvement in music has always sustained a deep interest in art as she took workshops and classes in Australia, Vallejo, Riverside, Orange County, Capetown/South Africa, Bulawayo/Zimbabwe–wherever the family was living at the time.
Opportunity to become more active in the creative side of art has proved rewarding. With about forty canvases completed this last year she is continuing to develop her insights and skills.
She is a member of the California Art Club, PAAR (Plein Air Painters of Riverside), the Corona Art Association and the Redlands Art Association.
I like to work in oils. The smell and texture of the paints, the gestures of applying it with the various hardness and softness of brushes and palette knives, the decisions making relative to value, composition and tone, the seeking out of harmonious subject matter–these are all are challenging, joyful and healing to the spirit. I continually find parallels between music and painting; concentration in either field can lead one into a dream-like state of suspension where time stands still and there is deep pleasure in just being.”