CityView Magazine - Fayetteville, NC
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/6452
CityViewNC.com | 23 to journaling and collages using acrylics. She had done both before, but now she was using the medium as a means to sort through her emotions and reconnect with her creativity. At first, she simply slapped paint around with her hands. Her first collage was dark. She added meaningful quotes mingled with paint, then various kinds of paper. Just as she made these first forays back into the world of art, an opportunity arrived for an artist's retreat to France. With her husband's encouragement, she went. "It's what I needed to push me to the next step," she said. In early October, Hutchins traveled to France with a group of North Carolina artists. For a week, she and 12 other women made the ancient Le Vieux Couvent their retreat. The church bells would ring at 7 a.m. to begin days filled with delicious food and travels to out-of- the-way villages and scenic areas. Hutchins kept a journal of her time in France. She also began sketching quick drawings in charcoal and capturing hundreds of photos to be used as artistic fodder back home. When she returned to Fayetteville, Hutchins finished her first painting in two years, a tiny cottage in a floral garden. The trip to France not only refreshed and inspired her, it gave her a different outlook on art. Her repertoire of collages has changed as she layers paint, photographs, magazine cutouts and inspiring quotes with thoughts and emotions. Nature and inspiring words have replaced dark gloomy colors. The collages portray the present with hints of the past peeking through; the art is evolving. Hutchins says the changes, even the temporary departure from painting, were necessary steps in her creative search for self. No longer does she define herself as an oil painter but as an artist. "(Change) forces you to realize your own definition of self and who you think you were," Hutchins said recently, "and, more importantly, who you feel you are now." CV Jeniffer Hutchins will be exhibiting a variety of her works at Olde Town Gallery, 124 Maxwell Street, March 4 through May 31. A reception will be held at 7 p.m., March 4.