WARREN, Pa. – William Disbro of Jamestown, New York, will be sharing his intricate perspective of captivating landscape scenery from Dec, 2 – 31 at the Crary Art Gallery.
The opening reception for this exhibit, Story Boards – Images of Changing Views will begin 5 p.m., Disbro will give a talk at 6 p.m., and the event will continue until 7 p.m.
Disbro’s parents and teachers recognized his talent for art when he was at an early age. Coming from a family of teachers, teaching, and art just seemed to go together. After earning his bachelor’s degree in art education from Kent State University, Disbro spent his first year teaching art at elementary and junior high schools. He then completed graduate art school at Kent State University and spent five years as the second full-time art faculty at Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan. In 1970 he began his long tenure at Jamestown Community College as its first full-time art instructor. He developed the art curriculum and taught there for 32 years. Disbro’s training and teaching were in three-dimensional areas such as clay, bronze casting, and welding. Disbro’s favorite thing about teaching was sharing knowledge to help others experience better lives. He compares teaching to parenting and leading students in creative, positive directions.
When Disbro retired from JCC in 2002 he started to learn how to paint. As far as deciding on a subject matter, Disbro goes between depicting reality and offering tranquility; unfortunately, the two are sometimes mutually exclusive. Disbro’s most recent body of work shows 2” x 2” squares of painted surface around a larger painted shape. The large piece is the subject and the surrounding squares add details that might reference how the subject might look in different weather, a different time of day, up closely or under a microscope, etc.
When asked about this method, Disbro said, “The 2” x 2” squares permit additional visual information that couldn’t be painted into a representational space.”
