"The Nature of Perception and

The Perception of Nature"

Wednesday evening I attended a lecture by Stuart Shils, an American artist. A graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, in recent years Shils has shown his work in solo exhibitions in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as in Israel and Ireland.

The subject, the nature of perception and the perception of nature, was just what I needed. I've been learning to not only look at the subject of my paintings, but to see them! Shils re-enforced

what I have learned from both Becky Pashia and Ada Koch, and then, made my mind go a few steps further, and that is not an easy job!

Shils has a delightfully dry sense of humor that was scattered throughout his lecture, making it possible to not become so totally bogged down with technical information. He stood before the large screen pointing out how an area of light related to an area of dark, but would then toss in a humorous comment on the mental stability of the artist. He discussed many such areas in probably 30 to 40 paintings. He talked on not only light and dark, but line, shape, hard and soft edges and color relationships.

Stuart Shils provided an extremely interesting lecture at ARTichokes. It was a privilege to take part in the evening and as I've been thinking about the lecture this morning, it is exciting to realize how much I learned! I will be looking at both my subject and my painting with a different eye from this point on.

Shils has a number of paintings being shown at ARTichokes gallery. Visit the gallery soon and enjoy the soft beautiful work of Stuart Shils. ARTichokes is located in the new and beautiful area of Mission Farms at 10557 Mission Road, Leawood, KS 66206