THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9601310154
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANK ROBERTS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
More than 700 works by 112 artists will be offered in the ninth annual Nansemond-Suffolk Academy Art Show and Sale, which opens Sunday and continues until Feb. 12.
Watercolors, acrylics, oils, ceramics, glass, copper and mixed media are included.
John Alan Stock, a Virginia Beach artist who is honorary chairman, called it ``one of the best-run shows in Hampton Roads - and a wider area.'' He has participated since it began.
Proceeds support fine arts at the academy, a private school with 1,010 students from several areas of Hampton Roads. Art prices range from about $30 to about $3,000.
Among participating artists are Louis Jones, Grace Leach, Charles Sibley and Ken Wright. Numerous Suffolk artists are included.
The event is the area's largest indoor invitational art show, luring exhibitors from Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland. Stock said it is also one of the most respected.
Last year's show and sale brought in more than $35,000, with about $11,000 going to the academy. Several departments received computers and other equipment, and a cultural enrichment program was funded.
Besides being a fund-raiser, a press release said, the show is ``exposing our chidren to the fine arts, and hopefully this will create a lifelong appreciation.'' Some upper school students will display works.
Stock said art results when you ``teach your mind to leap out of its normal pattern of thinking.'' For his success at it, he has received more than 120 citations and awards in international, national and regional juried exhibitions and competitions.
Stock, 50, is manager of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, which designs and constructs military facilities around the globe.
Stock, formally untrained as an artist, does watercolors - his favorite - acrylics, drawings and oils. ``My mother was an artist,'' he said. ``I probably inherited her interest, (but) I never took lessons.''
To create art, he said, ``Teach your mind to leap out of its normal pattern of thinking. See everything in a new light.''
He added, ``All people have a lot more creativity than they realize. It has to be brought out.''
Stock is writing a book on creativity, an effort to inspire others to get involved in art.
``I like to take people from the mundane world to the world of dreams, and back again,'' he said. ``I like to to do it in such a way as to make those dreams possible.''
Stock, his Italian-born wife Joan, and their three children live in the Broad Bay Estates area of Virginia Beach. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MICHAEL KESTNER
John Alan Stock will display his scenic ``Morning Light'' in the
Nansemond-Suffolk Academy Art Show and Sale, which opens Sunday.
by CNB