In the News: Longview, Texas. Longview News-Journal. Sunday Feature "Lifestyle". Aug. 16, 2020
East Texas artist's love of color,
movement reflected in online gallery
· By Sherry P. Shephard, Features Editor
Artist Debra Wadlington is inspired
by movement and color, which is reflected in the paintings in her online
gallery.
Wadlington,
who moved from New Mexico to Holly Lake Ranch in Wood County recently, opened
an online art gallery at DebraWadlingtonArt.blogspot.com .
One of the exhibits included in the gallery, “Dancers,” reflects the history, culture and lifestyles of the American West, including horses, cowboys, stagecoaches, landscape and still life.
“My realism is pretty emotional sometimes in that I use a lot of color,” Wadlington said. “I like to paint anything as long as I’m doing it with shading.”
She said she knew early on that she
wanted to be an artist.
“When I was
in the first grade, I knew I wanted to be an artist,” she said. “When I was a
junior in high school I received a scholarship to KU (University of Kansas).
So, I majored in art in college.”
Wadlington’s work has been displayed
in government offices, public libraries, museums and galleries throughout the
Southwest, including Hobbs Library in New Mexico, Jamison Gallery in Santa Fe,
New Mexico, and the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville.
Wadlington
said of all her subjects, dancers are her favorite.
“I like the movement in dancing, so
I concentrate on trying to paint movement,” she said. “I’ve always loved to
dance, since I was a little girl.”
Her favorite
painting, Wadlington said, is a 2008 acrylic of a cowboy and cowgirl dancing.
The painting, “First Embrace,” won best in show in a Carlsbad, New Mexico, art
show and also at the Noel-Wagner Museum spring show in Odessa.
“She’s wearing a big colorful skirt,” Wadlington said of the cowgirl in the painting. “That’s how I got into painting — painting the Spanish dancers, the Mexican dancers. I loved the colorful skirts the cowgirls wore so I started painting the Mexican girls because their dresses show so much movement.”
"First Embrace"
As a young girl growing up in New Mexico, Wadlington said she would often go to country dances.
“I lived on
a farm and all the families would get together and go to the high school
dances, even before I started school,” she said. “So, I’ve always loved to
dance, and I’m just trying to express myself through painting because I don’t
get to dance that much now.”
Wadlington’s love of horses and
cowboys also stems from her childhood.
“I also
paint cowboys and horses because I come from a farm,” she said. “That’s my
heritage, so I really love that, too, and the landscape.”
"Hank, the Ranch Foreman"
However,
Wadlington said her hometown in New Mexico now is almost a ghost town, and
moving to East Texas was a welcomed change.
“We moved
here last June, and this is the first time I’ve lived in Texas,” she said. “My
daughter, Sandra Holden, lives in McKinney, but we hated the traffic and I
didn’t want to live in Dallas."
Wadlington said for the past few
weeks, most of her time has been spent working on the website.
“Recently,
I’ve been doing a lot of drawings and portraits,” she said. “The reason I
haven’t been working too much right now is because I’ve been working so hard to
get the website up and organizing that.”
And
those portraits, Wadlington said, are mostly of family members.
“I’m always drawing my granddaughter, Haley,” she said. “She’s a senior in high school this year, and I’ve got all kinds of paintings of her when she was a little girl, so I need to start some of her as a big girl.”
Artist Debra Wadlington's granddaughter, Haley
"LOL!"
