Art Talk

If you missed this past weekend’s openings at local galleries, do not worry as most will be open for the rest of the season.  As we approach winter months, I thought it might be fun to focus on individual artists. In this series, “What Are You Working on Now?”  I will interview artists in the area to find out what their current projects are and how they are creating them. This past weekend, I was excited to talk to local artist Mari Foster about her current series of work.
Mari is currently working on a grouping of works that she calls Seismographs. The interesting thing about her process is that she is creating work by sitting in a moving vehicle. She gets willing participants, which she says is the hardest part, to drive her around in different vehicles and on various roads while she holds the pen above the paper letting it make its spontaneous marks. When she first tried this experiment, she found that looking down at her paper often made her motion sick, so now she looks straight ahead, only occasionally glancing at her work.
Her artistic journeys have been made in a yellow Silverado truck, a Jeep, a red Impala, a Ford Escape and even a 1960s Dodge dump truck. She has traveled on various roads, each with their different terrains and used different inks and papers. Each combination creates a unique look and one which she cannot duplicate, so every work is truly an individual. The works are named by the road or vehicle in which she created the piece.
Mari Foster’s extraordinary work can be found at Bozarts Gallery on 403 Main St.