This Thursday we talked with two JCPS teachers working with NTI. Ben Evans teaches science at Noe Middle School and Julie Dingman Evans teaches theatre at YPAS. They were joined by their daughter, Bailey and the trio sang “All of Me”, ! an example of something they've been doing on social media during the quarantine. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on ARTXFM.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Keith Waits talk with artists.
Youth Performing Arts School
Vignette: Pat Allison
"Louisville's Ohio", by Pat Allison, Oil on canvas, 28x22in, 2018, $500
As a student in Jefferson County Schools, Pat Allison was invited to participate in after-school, free, art classes in the fifth and sixth grades at Southern Junior High School. We’re guessing that makes her an alumnus of Louisville Visual Art’s Children's Fine Art Classes. During one summer after sixth grade her parents paid for art classes at the Louisville Art Center, which was an earlier name for LVA.
"NYC’s Central Park” by Pat Allison, Oil, 12x16in, Private collection
Yet in high school, Allison changed direction, and studied Speech and Theatre at Indiana University Bloomington. In 2019 she retired from teaching at Louisville’s DuPont Manual/ Youth Performing Arts School where she founded its New Works Festival and the Young Writers Workshop. Since her retirement after 43 years of teaching, she began to devote more of her energies once again to painting.
So is Allison’s preoccupation with structural pattern in her work the natural result of a lifetime of teaching? The organization and routine of the classroom and developing new educational curriculum must have influenced her in this regard. The network of steel support in the bridge across the Ohio River is echoed in the freeway below and contrasted against the vertical lines of the architecture we see beyond, and the more subtle organic patterns of nature are present in the wintry trees and stylized examination of the lily.
Allison has been studying oil painting for the past twelve years with Winnie Harrison at the Preston Art Center in Louisville.
She was selected for the Jewish Community Center’s 2010 Emerging Artist Exhibition, and was juried into the Louisville Woman’s Club Exhibitions in 2015, 2016, & 2017. She has written and illustrated two children’s picture books, Butterfly and Roberto Robot
On September 29, Allison will be part of the Louisville Visual Art’s Juried Exhibit in the 2018 Portland Art & Heritage Fair. The exhibit will be available for viewing at the Marine Hospital from 11am-5pm. Jury prizes will be awarded at 2:00pm.
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Education: Degree in Speech & Theatre, Indiana University
Facebook: PatAllisonPaintings
Scroll down for more images
"Exploring Maine’s Coast" by Pat Allison, Oil, 18X24, $650
"Lily’s Birth" by Pat Allison, Oil on canvas, 9x12in, 2018, $350
Written by Keith Waits. Entire contents copyright © 2018 Louisville Visual Art. All rights reserved. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.
