Drawing an object without looking at the paper hooked Janet Andre Block on art

SHARON — When Janet Andre Block’s husband, Zenas, was 80 years old he announced he wanted to sculpt.So the couple went to Italy. (Of course! Where else does a budding octogenarian sculptor go?) And Janet, a Wall Street- trained corporate professional, a sought-after management and leadership consultant, was suddenly exposed to the artist’s lifestyle. “I was totally enchanted,” she said. “These artists get up in the morning, work all day, dine, discuss, drink wine — no wonder they’re willing to starve for art.”Asked if that was when she started painting, she replied, “Oh no. I just watched and wandered around Pietrasanta. I wasn’t an artist. There was no way I could ever paint!” ... a statement that is completely belied by the wide-ranging exhibit she has put together for The Hotchkiss Library of Sharon, to be shown from Dec. 3 to Jan. 31.Returning from Italy, the attraction to art persisted. She took a drawing course at the Interlaken School of Art in Stockbridge, Mass. Her first exercise was a “blind contour” — a drawing done without looking at the paper — only the subject. Her instructor was impressed. And Block was hooked. “I’m an artist!” she told her husband that evening.“After only three hours?” he replied.Block paints memories. Every image is from something in her life. But like memories, the images on her canvases are fluid, abstracted, simplified to their essence — the things one retains from a fleeting glance at an object. “In the simplest things there is great beauty and complexity,” she says. Her favorite subjects are barns, pears and flowers which she paints in layers — applying the paint with brush and palette knife ... scraping it off ... applying more. The finished product is as much about what’s underneath as it is about the image itself. For shows like this one she does a lot more work than she needs, knowing that some will not satisfy her. She is refreshingly straightforward about her art. “People expect too much of themselves when they paint,” she said. “You have to be willing to fail.” She does not worry about whether a painting is good or bad. She tries not to become so attached to a piece that she can’t see change is needed. In fact, some will change midway through the work. “You see that one?” she asks, indicating a still life of two pears on a small square canvas. “It’s not cooperating. I think it’s going to become a barn.”An opening reception with wine and cheese and a chance to meet and talk to the artist will be held at the Hotchkiss Library, located on the Green in Sharon, from 4 –6 p.m. on Sunday, December 9. For further information please contact the Library at 860-364-5041 or go to www.hotchkisslibrary.org