As an artist, Genevieve Goalen has worked in the mediums of watercolor, pottery, oil painting, mural painting, batik and silk painting. Now, she is exploring the art of copper!
After receiving a BAA and BFA from the University of Minnesota, Duluth she lived in Alaska for 17 years (minus a year in Australia) and taught art in the Alaska public school systems ranging from the wild Bering Sea coast to the Palmer/Wasilla area and also worked in the Arts in Education Program in Anchorage.
As an artist, Genevieve Goalen has worked in the mediums of watercolor, pottery, oil painting, mural painting, batik and silk painting. Now, she is exploring the art of copper!
After receiving a BAA and BFA from the University of Minnesota, Duluth she lived in Alaska for 17 years (minus a year in Australia) and taught art in the Alaska public school systems ranging from the wild Bering Sea coast to the Palmer/Wasilla area and also worked in the Arts in Education Program in Anchorage. After a move to Wisconsin she taught art once again in the public schools but changed careers when together with her husband they opened an art store specializing in framing, supplies, and classes while running a gallery highlighting local artists.
Genevieve and Timothy moved to Hawaii, the Big Island in 2012 to be close to their daughter and grandchildren. They have set up a home studio in Honomu. They each bring their talents to the artwork with Genevieve working on the images and Tim building the frames and wrapping the copper onto the frame. Hawaii brings them new local images of palm trees, bamboo, ferns, geckos, sea turtles, trees, volcanos and they continue to explore new images.
Copper is a material where Genevieve can incorporate her love of the images of awe-inspiring Hawaii and also work in the abstract. She personally is drawn to the color produced by the fire applied to the copper, by the shapes created with buffing and the final product being “framed” with the clear coating that illuminates the artwork. Each image is unique and cannot be precisely replicated. So each piece is a new journey. It is a pleasure to share their artwork with others who may be fascinated with the luminosity that reflects variations of colors and shapes within the copper.
Like Norman Rockwell, Seuss personally created every rough sketch, preliminary drawing, final line drawing and finished work for each page of every project he illustrated. Despite the technical and budgetary limitations of color printing during the early and mid-twentieth century, Dr. Seuss the artist was meticulous about color selection. He created specially numbered color charts and elaborate color call-outs to precisely accomplish his vision for each book. Saturated reds and blues, for example, were carefully chosen for The Cat in the Hat to attract and maintain the visual attention of a six-year-old audience. By the time Seuss’s book career took off, sharp draftsman skills were evident in drawings. His ability to move a storyline ahead via illustrations filled with tension, movement and color became a hallmark component of his work, and the surreal images that unfolded over six decades became the catalyst for a humorous and inspired learning experience.
Artist Leo Rijn, the inaugural sculptor for the Dr. Seuss Tribute Collection I, was selected to launch this project due to his prized work with some of today’s top talent in the world of film, entertainment and the visual arts (including Tim Burton, Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg). Rijn has been identified as one of today’s brightest sculpting talents because of his ability to breathe life into the written word and successfully transform two-dimensional ideas into three-dimensional works of art. Universal Studios commissioned Leo to develop and oversee the creation of numerous maquette scale models for the Monumental Dr. Seuss Sculptures at Seuss Landing in Orlando, Florida. Leo was instrumental in the art direction for many of the sculpted characters and buildings now on display at this permanent Seuss attraction. His strikingly accurate Seuss works embody a masterful and intuitive Seussian sensibility, establishing him as a leading talent in interpretive sculpting.
Seuss embarked on an ingenious project in the early 1930s as he evolved from two-dimensional artworks to three-dimensional sculptures. What was most unusual for these mixed-media sculptures was the use of real animal parts including beaks, antlers and horns from deceased Forest Park Zoo animals where Seuss’s father was superintendent. Unorthodox Collection of Taxidermy was born in a cramped New York apartment and included a menagerie of inventive creatures with names like the “Two Horned Drouberhannis,” “Andulovian Grackler,” and “Semi-Normal Green-Lidded Fawn.” Shortly after Seuss created this unique collection of artworks, Look Magazine dubbed Seuss “The World’s Most Eminent Authority on Unheard-Of Animals.” To this day, Seuss’s Unorthodox Collection of Taxidermy remains as some of the finest examples of his inventive and multi-dimensional creativity.
Illustrator by day, surrealist by night, Seuss created a body of irrepressible work that redefines this American icon as an iconographic American artist. Yet, the Secret Art often shows a side of the artist that most readers, familiar with him through his classic children’s books, have never seen. This collection, created over a period of more than 60 years, encompasses the entirety of Seuss’s multi-dimensional talent. The artistic golden thread highlighted throughout this collection is apparent in each wildly imaginative and surreal Secret Art image. The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss is an inimitable collection of artworks created at night for his own personal enjoyment. These works were rarely, if ever, exhibited during his lifetime and provide a deeper glimpse into the art and life of this celebrated American Icon.