Master’s artwork seeps into students’

The Dunedin Fine Art Center pays tribute to a mentor who inspired watercolor artists, and their students as well.

[Times photo: Jim Damaske] Gail Wuertz hangs work by artist Wilma Bulkin Siegel at the Dunedin Fine Art Center.

By EILEEN SCHULTE

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 11, 2001

DUNEDIN -- In 1967, fledgling artist Miles Batt traveled from his home in Florida to southern California to study with watercolor expert Rex Brandt.

He spent a week at a workshop learning from a person some consider a virtuoso, then promptly decided to take his style in the opposite direction.

Instead of painting Brandt's type of traditional mountains, vineyards and beaches popular at the time, Batt began to create abstract paintings with letters, musical notes and blotches.

"I went in a much more contemporary mode," said Batt from his Fort Lauderdale home. "It's been my mission in life to update and contemporize watercolor."

Besides watercolors, the late Brandt and Batt have something else in common. Brandt taught, and so does Batt.

Their paintings are showcased in the diverse exhibit "Mentor to Mentor: A Legacy in Watercolor," which runs from today to June 20 at the Dunedin Fine Art Center.

Another artist whose work is affixed to the walls of the center is Rowena Smith. She was a student of Batt's.

And so it goes. One artist was a student of another.

By looking at Batt's and Smith's work, it's clear the artists whose works grace the walls were not stingy with the advice they gave one another.

David Shankweiler surveyed the sunlit Entel Family Gallery, sweat beading on his face. The artists' pictures everywhere, some already hung, some still leaning against the walls.

"One of my favorite parts of the job is hanging paintings," said Shankweiler, the curator of exhibitions at the Dunedin Fine Art Center. "It's what I call dancing with a work."

With music blaring from a boom box on the floor, Shankweiler and a volunteer worked to create just the right flow for the exhibit.

Their mission is to demonstrate how Brandt's influence flowed to Batt and then to Juliane Ketcher, Lynne Kroll, Wilma Bulkin Siegel and Hilda Stuhl.

Brandt's work will have a place of honor in the center of the room, "so when you're walking through the exhibit looking at each work, Rex Brandt's (art) will be just over your shoulder," said Shankweiler.

Rexford Elson Brandt was born in 1914 and died last year. For half a century he lived in Newport Beach, Calif., and was considered by many to be one of that state's greatest watercolor scene artists, painting the Napa Valley vineyards and the shore.

To his students, he was a genius who taught color and composition, and allowed them to pass their knowledge down through three generations of artists.

"The whole point of this show is the mentor-to-mentor theme because we're a teaching institution," said Shankweiler. "The watercolor program here is quite large."

But just because the artists loved Brandt's technique, it doesn't mean they copied him. Far from it. Batt's work, for example "is quite abstract. What he took from Rex is color and composition," said Shankweiler.

On the exhibition wall, Rowena Smith's works start where Batt's works end. Smith was a student of Brandt's but she lived in Florida. The trips back and forth across the country for lessons were difficult to make, so Brandt referred her to Batt for lessons. Her art is filled with striking angles and deep colors.

"Rowena likes to experiment," said Shankweiler.

He stood in front of one particularly disturbing painting with deep reds and purples, but no identifiable shapes or forms.

"This is pure emotion," he said. "She'd have to tell us what it means."

A little farther down the wall, Juliane Ketcher, a student of Smith's, used sculpture to create a collage effect in a glass-encased, mixed-media piece called Infrastructure 1, in which shapes emerge and objects are combined.

The influence is that of Batt's, said Shankweiler.

Down the hall from the Entel Family Gallery, the works of six Dunedin Fine Art Center instructors and their mentors will be shown. Although "we don't have the relationship (between all artists) running through the room," Shankweiler said, you can still see how the mentors influenced the students.

Nearby, near a darkroom, is a third exhibit, a one-woman show called Mary Lowe: Intimate Impressions.

"She taught here for 17 years, retired in 1996, and has been working on this body of work since then," said Shankweiler. "This is energy and movement inspired by what she sees in her backyard at her home in Ozona."

If you go

The Dunedin Fine Art Center will present the exhibit "Mentor to Mentor: A Legacy in Watercolor" today through June 29 at the center, 1143 Michigan Blvd. It features the works of several widely known and local watercolor artists. An opening reception will be from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight, beginning with a gallery talk by Miles Batt. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. There is no admission fee. For information, call (727) 298-3322.

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