Artist describes New Orleans paintings

Sisters artist Nancy Watterson-Scharf feels a particular connection to the beleaguered city of New Orleans. In fact, she teared up several times while describing the vibrant culture that inspired her recent series of New Orleans-themed prints.

The paintings were on display at Paulina Springs Books on Friday night, September 23, as part of the three-day arts celebration “O, Sisters Where Art Thou?” Watterson-Scharf discussed both the story behind her paintings and the techniques used in an “Art Speak” program designed to give the audience a glimpse into the creative process.

The artist, who visited the city several years ago, described its unique heritage of Spanish and French colonization; a Creole culture with an ambiguous role in the antebellum south; the rise of jazz at the turn of the 20th Century. The cultural elements seemed exotic and liberating to Watterson-Scharf.

“I felt free,” she said.

Her paintings capture that sense of freedom, with vibrant colors depicting scenes of street musicians jamming. Yet there are mysterious and unsettling elements, too, as befits a city with a history as traumatic as it is exciting.

Many of Watterson-Scharf’s paintings include ghostly transparent figures, depicting a sense of loneliness and alienation in the midst of a crowd.

Watterson-Scharf answered many questions from her audience, from technique to symbolic meaning to describing her work schedule.

Watterson-Scharf is auctioning her New Orleans series of prints as a fund-raising benefit with 80 percent of the proceeds going to Hurricane Katrina relief. For more information contact the Cliff Scharf Gallery at 549-0556.