Sometimes Olga Plam forgets
life still goes on outside the still life she is painting. She often
finds herself lost in the moment, brush and canvas drawing her into
another world. Only when it gets dark, and the lines on her piece
begin to blur, does she realize she hasn't moved for hours.
"I am glad that the sun goes down," Plam jokes, a
deep Russian accent coloring her words.
In December of 2002, Plam's painting, "Orchids," appeared
on the cover of Southwest Art magazine, a prestigious publication
based in
Houston
. She was the first
Colorado
artist ever featured on the magazine's front.
"I was so happy I couldn't believe it was really
happening," Plam says of the honor.
She was also a finalist in the "still life" category of
the 2002 Artist's Magazine annual art competition. This was no small
feat considering her work was chosen from more than 13,000 other
works. In that December issue, two of Plam's paintings were
highlighted as part of a series: "Realism Today, The Still
Life." Both pieces demonstrate Plam's expertise with oil paint.
Her technique, she says, is rooted in the realist tradition of the
"old masters" like Rembrandt, who were the first to paint
the atmosphere around their subjects using light and shadow.
Plam sits comfortably in her studio as she describes her passion, an
almost finished floral painting resting on the easel in front of
her. In the big picture, painting isn't everything, she says, but
it's close. "The
process of painting makes me very happy. I cannot even say how
important it is; I just paint every day. It's my life."
It wasn't always that way though.
Born in
Russia
in the late '30s, Plam used to paint and draw as a child at the
urging of her mother. But after she graduated from the Stroganoff
School of Art in
Moscow
, she pursued a career in graphic design, before returning to the
school as an associate professor. When she immigrated to the
United States
in 1976, she fell back into graphic design to put food on the table.
For a long time, she couldn't afford thoughts of painting.
It wasn't until 1992, through a stroke of luck and a secure
pocketbook that Plam started to paint once more. The catalyst was
Bob Venosa, an artist who worked in "fantastic realism."
"At that time, I had the fear of a pristine, white,
clean canvas," she admits. "It was frightening to put the
first paint on it. Bob, very gently, took me back into
painting."
Not long after, she met David A. Leffel, a master of still life and
portraiture. She brushed up on her skills under his tutelage,
perfecting the realist style which infuses her work today.
In the 10 years since she's started painting again, Plam has
won numerous awards for her work and has joined the Oil Painters of
America and American Women Artists Association, organizations
concerned with excellence in representational art.
Looking almost regal, glasses held in one hand, Plam points to the
picture she is currently working on, explaining the nuances of her
trade. "The most
important thing in the still life is the light. The light has a
movement ... the shadows, the darkness, it stays. Where the
strongest light falls on the subject, the subject almost
dissolves." And the
light, she says, is created by the contrast of colors. The extensive
palette at her disposal allows her to experiment with her
creativity.
"I think that probably the still life, as a genre, has the most
available color to the painter," she says. "A portrait
cannot have as many colors ... even a landscape. (And) I'm very much
attracted to the colors."
Every piece Plam does is a challenge, she says, taking anywhere from
a couple of days to a couple of weeks. And it's not only the
painting itself, but the way the still life is initially arranged.
She has to have the right balance of composition and color, a
process that's not as easy as one might think.
"Sometimes I spend two days, and I'm exhausted because
it doesn't come right," she says. "When you are
disappointed hour after hour, it's very tiring."
But when it all comes together, the feeling is one that almost
defies words, she says. And that, ultimately, is her inspiration.
When a stroke of paint is applied just right, followed by
another stroke that goes exactly with the first, the piece almost
seems to shape itself, guided by some deeper insight.
"Beautiful art gives you such an incredible, uplifting
excitement," she says.
"I love what she does with color and light," says on of
her collectors. "I think she just puts a lot of her soul and
her own beauty into these paintings."
Plam's husband, Misha, would agree, playfully saying she puts
so much of herself into it that she often doesn't know when to stop.
But he loves her work. "A
lot of artists have talent, but talent without taste is a tragic
event," he says, as Olga, ever humble, shrinks away from the
praise. But she does
likes to share her work with her husband and with the community as a
whole. Anytime she sees something that strikes a chord in her, she
wants to preserve it on canvas so others can experience the feeling.
"You see the beautiful things and it's inspiring," she
says. "You want to make them permanent."
Excerpts
for bio taken from Boulder Daily Camera article 1/10/2002.
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