THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602150192
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 15 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Mary Ellen Riddle
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
It will be a show not easily forgotten for its color, breadth and versatility. And it will be a rare Elizabeth City visitor that won't recognize the paintings of the newly appointed Artist Laureate of Elizabeth City, Lina Larson.
On display at the Pasquotank Arts Council Gallery in Elizabeth City through March 14 is a show that spans the last 50 years of Larson's life.
That's only a drop in the bucket for the 93-year-old artist who was born in a Victorian house on West Main Street.
She left for 30 years and when her husband died in 1972, Larson began making plans to return to her birthplace. ``I came home to die,'' she said. ``I thought I was old enough to die.''
But she was jarred back into life ``after doing a year of needlepoint, drinking highballs and gossip,'' she said. ``We would rock and do needlepoint in the den and gossip and sip.''
After seeing her friend, Grace LeRoy, hold her needle an arm's length away to thread it, said Larson, ``I realized how old she was and she looked, and so was I. That's when I think I got out of the rocking chair.''
It would be easy to fill this review with references to Larson's age, because she's an amazing ``old lady.'' But it's best, when it comes to Larson, to expel every preconceived notion about the elderly.
Not wanting me to get lost driving to her home, Larson insisted on meeting in town to escort me. Many cars passed the gallery before a van pulled up with a woman in her 60s driving, another much older woman was her passenger. They got out of the van across from the art gallery. The elder of the two was dressed in old-fashioned high top black heels. She looked 93 years old. The shoes did anyway. It had to be Larson. But the couple drifted away slowly in the opposite direction.
Not long after, another, more compact car pulled up. Shortly after, a white haired woman with a scarf that had two pens attached to it, stuck her head in the gallery door. She was alone. I followed her home; Larson leading the way behind the wheel. Once in her lovely home filled with paintings and frames covering the walls, propped up against doors and stacked on tables in several rooms, the life of Lina Larson began to unfold in an easy conversation filled with memories narrated by a very witty woman.
To encapsulate all of Larson's years would be impossible in this format. You'd have to include her work as a nurse, College of the Albemarle art teacher, mother of two daughters and interior decorator.
``All the wars and some of the scuffles, I've lived through five of those and the depressions and the inflations,'' she said.
And gallery goers will have a chance to peek into her fruitful life through the 30 to 40 paintings she's showing.
Larson said her artistic pursuit began at age 6 or 7 when ``I was given a set of watercolors for Christmas,'' she said. Her first painting was entitled ``Here's to the Down Home Old North State.'' She sold it to a friend of her mother's for two dollars.
Larson has worked in many mediums over the years, but most of the work you'll see in this show will be acrylic, ink and watercolor paintings. Her subject matter varies from the abstract to the realistic. Sometimes she'll combine both styles in a single work.
She drew a spray of flowers with pastels, integrating blossoms and red rectangular shapes. ``People think that I am crazy but I have to please me,'' she said. ``If I just had to paint the same thing, the same style . . . You know at this point in time I paint to please me.''
She enjoys painting landscapes, animals and people. She remembers enticing her young daughter to sit for a whole day for a portrait by providing comic books that were usually forbidden. ``Every half hour I let her get on her bicycle and get another one,'' Larson said. Sometimes Larson creates works that she thinks will sell, but her greatest joy comes when she's simply ``pushing paint.''
``If I didn't do something like this every once in a while I'd get indigestion,'' she said pointing to an abstract work. ``I can paint pretty only so long.''
Anything can happen when Larson moves colors around on a canvas. A landscape she did of the Shenandoah Valley placing rich colors in stratas moving from land to sky, is an example of her looser method. The juxtaposition of color is magnificent. An older oil painting, that will be on display, is a scene featuring a large green tree with sheep huddled under it. ``They were my sheep,'' she said. ``I made the leaves with my thumb.''
The colors with similar values and varying shades of green and gray, give the pastoral scene great atmosphere with its soft application. Many of Larson's works were created while traveling on ``painting trips'' with a group of local artists. She's produced works on location while visiting Greece, Germany, Italy, the Amish country, the Shenandoah Valley, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Key West and the Outer Banks to name just a few spots.
Larson has been spending her time lately preparing for the show. She's pondering her painting selections, putting together frames and mats, and has even taken the time to stretch several canvases that await her touch, shining white, in her sun room studio, that Larson said is just too small. Sometimes she sits in bed and creates lively and petite ink paintings, some of which will be displayed in her retrospect.
At the risk of sounding cute, and I know Larson would hate that, she's definitely going strong at 93. If you haven't had the pleasure of meeting Larson, stop by the gallery and take in her work.
From the tiniest ink picture to the largest acrylic, her mark is unmistakable; full of vitality, demonstrating a pure love for paint, and a zest for documenting whatever strikes her fancy.
It's a show not easily forgotten. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY ELLEN RIDDLE
Lina Larson of Elizabeth City will showcase 50 years of her painting
at the Pasquotank Arts Council Gallery.
by CNB