Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM APRIL 4-10, 2018 UCW 19 'Namera Graybeal: The Sounds of Drawing' at Gallery 208 by SONI MARTIN Like public school teachers who teach core classes, public school art teachers have many extra duties, too. With so many challenges and duties through- out the year, it is not uncommon for an art teacher to arrive back at home around 7 p.m. after a long day of teaching. Although the job is rigorous, many art teachers still find time to practice their craft. In the classroom, they are sharing the information relevant to who they are as an artist. They encourage the creative impulse and help students develop a multicultural aesthetic understanding, learn about the arts in history, and discover the joy of expressing an idea or feeling through the ele- ments of art and design. In the spirit of celebrating the public-school art teacher/ artist, Gallery 208 will exhibit a body of work by the senior art teacher at Westover High School in Fayetteville in an exhibit titled "Namera Graybeal: The Sounds of Drawing." The opening and artist's reception is Tuesday, April 10, from 5:30-7 p.m. and is free to the public. This is Graybeal's fourth year teaching in the public-school system after earning a Bachelor of Arts in art education with a concentration in ceramics at Fayetteville State University in 2014. Graybeal is a full-time teacher. She is married with five children and has five grand- children. She is an art advocate in the communit y, has taught ceramic classes for six years in Fayetteville Technical Commu- nit y College's continuing educa- tion program and has taught during the summer months in the Ellington-W hite Contemporar y Galler y Summer Youth Program. And she still finds time to be a practicing artist. If you ask her how, she will tell you, "I'm an artist that teaches, and I have made a commitment to do something artistic ever y day." Graybeal creates images of nature that show us what we don't see. She doesn't focus on creat- ing pictorial space using mathematical or aerial perspective, making the everyday objects in nature more tangible through color, pattern, black and white and the arrangement of forms that spread over the paper's surface with a joyful intelligence. In a good drawing, we don't separate the mark- ing tools from the surface; such is the case in Graybeal's work. Her forms interact with each other with intent – parts of a greater whole. A greater narrative seems to be always unfolding within the complexity of the marks, colors and patterns. Graybeal draws with alcohol-based refillable copic pens, using the tip or edge of the pen for line quality. Colors are created with color pencils, ink, watercolors and sometimes a white gel pen. She creates contrast in the works with a variety of pat- tern and color. Her use of color, like everything on the page, is an intuitive process. A lt hough Graybeal is an excellent ceramicist and able to create realistic works of art in paint- ing (portraits, etc.), it is t hrough draw ing t hat she has been able to keep her commitment to "doing somet hing artistic ever y day." Inspired by her many books on patterns, Graybeal begins a draw ing by mak ing a simple pattern. Wit hout t hink ing about an end-product, she allows au- tomatism – t he process of work ing intuitively – to g uide her creation. So, why patterns? Graybeal commented, "Pat- terns are very popular right now, but I have always been interested in them and used variations of the pattern in my earlier work – in small amounts. For me, there is a consistency in the repetitive process, the repeti- tion is relaxing compared to my busy life. So, I draw to relax. When I'm drawing, there are sounds as the mark-making material moves across the surface of the paper. Like repetition, the sound is also soothing. You can hear the length of a line as you watch the width or darkness of the line diminish or gain in strength." When viewing Graybeal's imag- inative, fanciful and intelligent body of work at Gallery 208, one can readily see how she presents nature as movement and contrast. Variety can be found in the way she combines f lat and limited volume, color with black and white, and various thicknesses of line. Pattern is often thought of as movement; but combine that with her placement of objects on the picture plane and the movement she creates results in an implicit or explicit rolling and spinning across the plane. With so many patterns on the same drawing, how does Gray- beal know when to shift or change her patterns? She answered, "It's simple; I shift or change the pattern when I feel there is enough. It's always about balance and weight as I move across the surface, so I intuitively sense the appropriate size of a pattern and when it's time to shift." She said, further, "My nar- rative does emerge from the process of draw ing. I find that I predominantly draw nature and water as a subject, although I have started to use some archi- tecture in the newer works. I hope v iewers w ill take time w ith the work. I feel nature is mysteri- ous, but also ver y healing. Ultimately, I would like people to leave the ex hibit feeling happy and believ ing they could draw too – and w ill start to practice!" Gallery 208 is located at 208 Rowan St., and the public is invited to attend the opening and recep- tion of "Namera Graybeal: The Sounds of Draw- ing" April 10 from 5:30-7 p.m. Graybeal will brief ly discuss her work at 6:15 p.m. There will be plenty of time to see the exhibit since it will stay up until June 25. Gallery hours are 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, call 910-484-6200. COVER STORY In the spirit of celebrating the public-school art teacher/artist, Gallery 208 will exhibit a body of the work by the senior art teacher at Westover High School in Fayetteville. SONI MARTIN, Gallery 208 Curator. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomin- gweekly.com. 910-484-6200.