May 22, 2018

Meet Marilyn Rose

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marilyn Rose.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
When I was growing up in Chicago… first on the Southwest side and then to Evanston… my favorite place was the Art Institute of Chicago, and the highlight of my week were the Saturday and Summer Classes in the school which was deep in the basement of the museum.

When it came time for college, I was very practical and career driven, and decided to attend the art school at Washington University in St. Louis to study graphic design. I was awarded one of two Fred Conway Scholarships… and while it was unofficial, it seemed that one was award to a commercial art candidate and one to a fine artist.

The minute I got to school, I felt the tension between those two sides of the school and felt the faculty trying to pull me to the fine art side. They succeeded! I felt that, with my tuition fulling funded by the fellowship, I had the luxury to immerse myself in drawing and painting for 4 years, and that I could pick up the fundamentals of the design field after I graduated. It was a naive assumption, but it did work for me.

After University, I went to NYC with some friends, who were determined to move there for the rest of their lives. I was intending to spend a summer there. At the time, felt that I did not have enough passion for fine arts to wait tables to support myself, and I stumbled into an unpaid internship in a small boutique design firm (through a man I met on the street when I was looking for an apartment where I learned the ropes of the field. I moved on, from that firm to Hearst Magazines, and from there became art director of a prestigious, hardbound yachting publication, “Nautical Quarterly.” I developed a small free-lance business of my own on nights and weekends designing books, and museum publications and when Nautical Quarterly moved to Connecticut, I was ready to sublet a small NYC office and open Marilyn Rose Design in 1985 which I continue until today. Designing logos, corporate materials, brochures and magazines for not-for-profit as well as corporate clients.

Along the way, however, I once again felt the pull of the fine arts world, and this time realized that I had a passion for it which I could no longer surpress. My college work had been very large, abstract landscapes in oil for which there was no room in my life. In college, in the 70s, figurative work was looked down upon once we learned the fundamentals… and we had absolutely no training in watercolors which were looked down on as “hobby art,” so I was quite surprised when I fell in love with the medium after taking a watercolor class with a friend to humor her.

As a watercolorist, I am largely self-taught, but I have taken workshops with watercolor icons such as Charles Reid, Mel Stabin, Antonio Massi, Paul Ching-Bor and others. My work has a bold and free edge to it and, after winning awards and signature status in many organizations, I was asked to demonstrate, show and teach — which I now do regularly. I love plein air, participate in juried plein air competitions. Perhaps the highlight of my plein air career was being an artist in resident at Bryant Park in NYC.

Please tell us about your art.
Art is about passion. watercolor is a medium of great faith. The medium, as I use it, leaves little room to second guess myself or my painting. In my finished work, I don’t try to hide the evidence of my artistic process but, rather, I invite the viewer to join me in the creative endeavor in which the brush strokes and the application of pigment are obvious.
While my paintings take the natural world around me as their subject matter, they are really about edges and connections– the places where things meet: paint and paper; light and shadow; pigment and water; and the natural and manmade worlds. My work document an inner journey and an outer journey simultaneously.

As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
In the many plein air events in which I have participated, the judges time and again note the fact that my enthusiasm shines through in the work and that I am able to put my finger on the pulse of the places that I paint — capturing the people and the action as well as the spirit of the nature around me. My work takes a traditional medium, and pushes its boundaries, with a boldness and exuberance which I invite the viewer to share.

When I teach, I call my classes, “Joy of Watercolor” and here is nothing more rewarding to me than to watch a student transported by the process and fall in love with the medium of watercolor.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My paintings are in many private and corporate collections throughout the US and Canada. Much of my work can be seen on my website MarilynRose Art.com and I have a strong facebook presence on my MarilynRoseArt page (https://www.facebook.com/MarilynRoseArt/).

Some of my oil paintings are on permanent display at the Cooper cancer Center in Camden, New Jersey.

Eleven of my watercolor are in the permanent collection of the Bryant Park Corporation and can be viewed by appointment. Lest my ego becomes too inflated, one of my paintings is on permanent display in the lavish bathroom (in a building built by the Astor family and recently rennovated to the tune of $300,000 … one of the truly “best places to go”in New York City.

Most recently, I have established myself as an “event painter” and use my talents to record weddings and corporate events in unusual venues.

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