By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Beth Genson’s paintings have celebrated the beauty of nature.
Newer paintings now on exhibit at the Terhune Gallery at Owens Community College document the degradation of nature caused by fracking.
“The Heavens and Earth” will be on display at the gallery through Aug. 13. The exhibit is part of Genson’s appointment as the college’s first artist in residence. She is also leading workshops this summer on the campus in Perrysburg Township.
Genson’s interest in fracking comes through her friend Leatra Harper. The Grand Rapids resident had a home on Seneca Lake in southeast Ohio. She and her husband, who was working in Pennsylvania, were considering the spot as their retirement home. That is until fracking, the extraction of shale oil from deep within the earth, began in the area.
The process, she said, results in devastation above and below ground, and has health impacts on humans. And the full effects probably won’t be known, she said at the exhibit’s opening, “until it’s too late.”
And almost all of it happens with little government oversight.
Genson traveled to the area with Harper to see for herself. She wanted to do something to raise money for Harper’s FreshWater Accountability Project. Harper was uncertain about the salability of paintings depicting the effects of fracking, but Genson felt the paintings could have a visual appeal while showing the devastation.
The exhibit features paintings from the past three years. Not all are about fracking. She also is exhibiting work that celebrates the beauty of nature.
The paintings are realized using encaustics. The technique uses a combination of oil paint, wax, and Dammar varnish.
Genson started exploring the medium after attending a workshop at R&F Handmade Paints in Kingston NY. She had been using pigment sticks to add texture to her oil paintings. She wanted to learn more, but the only week she could attend the workshop in 2016, the session was devoted to encaustic paints. She decided to attend anyway and ended up falling in love with the technique.
The pigment is applied then warmed with a heat gun. It dries quickly, unlike oil paints, and can be manipulated after application, by reheating. The paints can be layered. Some people use it to create sculptures.
And using a variety of implements – Genson uses wood carving and ceramic carving tools – the paint can be shaped and gouged. That came in handy when depicting the way fracking rips into the earth.
This development is just the latest in Genson’s interest in art that dates back to childhood.
She grew up in Portage and attended elementary school at St. Aloysius. She did go to the Bowling Green Middle School for science and art, the first formal instruction she received. At Bowling Green High School, she benefited from working with student teachers from Bowling Green State University’s School of Art. After graduating in 1975, she went to BGSU. She tried everything including glassblowing, but was most attracted to painting, working with Bob Mazur.
He suggested she take enough courses to get a teaching certificate.
But after two years of teaching art and mechanical drawing, Genson decided to make a career change.
She’d been in DECA in high school, and studied advertising. She did well enough to get to the DECA national competition.
But in college she was told she couldn’t do illustration, design and copywriting; she’d have to specialize. She wanted to do it all.
An advertising job opened up at Sentinel-Tribune and she found she needed to do the selling, writing and design. She also started picking up freelance jobs.
She later moved on to the Woodland Mall, first in marketing then adding management to her job responsibilities. At one point she was managing five malls.
Tired of the rotating ownership at the mall she returned to the newspaper as ad director before leaving in 2010.
Throughout this time she continued painting in oil and encaustic. She did commissions for people, including a scene in New York City’s Central Park, for a young couple celebrating their anniversary. She did art work and banners for the mall while it was under local ownership.
She also teaches workshops, notably for the Findlay Art Guild and at Schedel Gardens.
At Owens this summer she’s teaching several workshops. Those still forthcoming are: Intro to Encaustics, July 20; Techniques in Encaustic, Aug. 3; and Encaustic Studio, July 15, 6-9 p.m. and Aug. 17. All workshops unless noted are 9 a.m. to noon. Click to register. Gallery hours are: Tuesday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Wednesday: 1-4:30 p.m.; and Thursday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
