Janice Mason Art Museum in Cadiz is showing "People and the Land: Elsa Bekkala Paintings" through November 29. The artist is of Sami- Finnish descent and was born on a farm in Keweenaw Bay, Michigan. After two decades of living in New York, she had settled into her Studio 1898 in Lafayette, Kentucky in Christian County near Ft. Campbell, where her sister Ellen Francis is the mayor. Kate Lochte meets Elsa Bekkala on Sounds Good and learns about her unique artistic medium: painting on copper.
Elsa Bekkala says artists in the 14th and 15th centuries would etch into copper and sometimes returned to their etchings and paint them. While working on her masters at the Rhode Island School of Design she studied how to paint on copper - how much to cover and how to seal the painting after it was finished so that the copper wouldn't change and discolor the work.
Bekkala grew up on a farm and now lives in rural Kentucky, but says it took some time to recognize the similarities between painting and farming:
"It took me some time to recognize that there are so many similarities between painting and farming. You need to really be responsive to the land and people around you, to understand that your land may be different from other peoples' land. The ground that you are working with has to be suitable to your personality. You have to form yourself and adapt it to the land that you're working on and love the land like I love copper. Once that has developed, there's a passion for your ground that you learn to preserve and that be unchanged and healthy so that it doesn't deteriorate in some way and make it impossible, for the generations that are coming, to use it."
Her work is on display at the Janice Mason Art Museum in Cadiz through November 29. The Museum's at 71 Main Street, open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. The exhibit features 31 paintings influenced by the land and people where she has lived: New York, Nevada and western Kentucky.
