Featured Artist

Erin Buckley
Welcome to Erin the first artist featured in my new Friday series.  Each Friday, I will be sharing the work of another artist.  Erin Buckley is a Richmond, Virginia based artist.  She works with acrylic, oil, and watercolor.  Erin is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where she studied Philosophy and English.  She completed two years of post-graduate service working with young adults with developmental disabilities in Portland, Maine, and with the elderly in Chicago.  To see more of Erin's wonderful work, visit her blog Thin Places. 

"First Stanza of T.S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,'" acrylic on canvas, 16"x20", Erin Buckley, 2010

A number of your paintings feature quotations and poems.  In the process of composing paintings, are you often inspired by literature?

I think it's a way I indulge myself since I've been out of school, by looking back through some old books!  It allows me to delve back into the text.  I got a positive response to the T.S. Eliot piece from a man at a Farmer's market, who commented, "you don't often see Prufrock like that, do you?"  It pleased me to think that he would stop, read, and think about the poem.  I think it would also be fun to illustrate poems without the words to see if the scene looks vaguely familiar to anyone, if he or she had formed a similar mental image.

"Chi-town Skyline," acrylic on canvas, 8"x10", Erin Buckley, 2010

Who are some artists that inspire you?

Norman Rockwell, for one.  Realistic art always mesmerizes me, and he has a way of capturing such tangible scenes, along with the particular emotion of a moment--fear of a schoolboy, comfort of a homecoming, nervousness, energy at a boxing ring.  I also love the old still lifes of Dutch realists', seeing those wet oysters, and that knife resting on the edge of the table beckoning you to pick it up and finish cutting that cheese block.

"Mother Teresa's 5-finger Prayer, 'As often as you did it to one of the least of my brothers and sisters...'" acrylic on canvas, 8"x10", Erin Buckley, 2010

What is the most interesting object you've used as a canvas?

Vinyl suitcases from my grandparents' attic.  I've transformed one into a cheeseburger, and one into a watermelon.  When I've put them out at shows, the most common response is some variation of, "you wouldn't lose that one at the airport, would you?"

"Bandstands and Sailboats," acrylic on canvas, 11"x14," Erin Buckley, 2010

Thanks so much Erin.  I look forward to continuing to follow your work!

What do you think of Erin's work?