EXAMINING SOCIAL, PERSONAL AND POLITICAL MOMENTS THROUGH ART

ART TO START THE CONVERSATION BY VALERIE PATTERSON

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ART TO START THE CONVERSATION by Valerie Patterson

ABCarlson Publishing

Paperback; January 16, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-9962883-3-0

$24.95; 11 x 8 ½, 68 pages

 

Powerful images can transcend the merely decorative; illustrating thoughts and ideas, urging us to think and feel, provoking conversation across differences, and drawing us toward the possibility of change. Combining intense emotion with a proficient attention to detail, Northern New York artist Valerie Patterson’s watercolor paintings take us outside of our comfort zones and ask us to examine life’s most vital questions and concerns. 

 

Now, for the first time, ART TO START THE CONVERSATION [978-0-9962883-3-0; $24.95; ABCarlson Publishing; January 2023] binds together 40 of Patterson’s most compelling images with the artist’s commentary, offering unique glimpses of the artist’s empathy and compassion as well as illuminating many details of her creative process.

 

Loosely grouped into chapters representing the passage of time, childhood, visceral emotions/responses, and the discovery process, the featured images represent some of Patterson’s most compelling images from a career spanning nearly 40 years of creating and teaching art. Introducing the collection, Renee Phillips, Director/Curator of Manhattan Arts International (NYC, NY), affirms that Patterson’s “inimitable style and technical prowess as a watercolor painter are matched by her profound insight that resonates truth, knowledge and understanding of the human condition.” Asked about her long dedication to provocative art, Patterson said; “Once I realized the tremendous power that images can have to make people comfortable or uncomfortable, happy or sad, settled or unsettled, I knew I had a voice. I decided to use my voice to encourage people to see, think and feel – something not always valued in our culture.”