Sondra Freckelton was born in Dearborn, Michigan in the late 1930's. She studied art at the school of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1950's. During in the early 1970's she was part of a group of noted abstract artists who incorporated realism in their work. The name of this art form was called "New or Super Realism". This group focused on realistically representing their subject matter to the point where it took on photographic quality.
Sondra Freckelton's transition into a watercolorist began in the 1960's. She was initially a sculptor who worked abstract shapes in wood and plastic under her married name of Sondra Beal. Her work was comprised of wooden forms projecting into space. She worked with vacuum-formed plastic, free-standing and wall-hung sculptures that were thought out and executed first in transparent watercolors. Interestingly enough, the visible inner structures of her vacuum-formed pieces resembled the veins in her future begonias. These preliminary watercolors evolved and developed into her early watercolors paintings. She is both self-criticized and self-taught in the medium.
Today she is a nationally known and respected artist who exhibits in museums, major galleries and shows all over the country. She teaches watercolor workshops and is a judge in art competitions as well as a noted and respected lecturer. Her art is very interesting because it truly is an expression of her daily life and environment. Her husband, artist Jack Beal said that "her art is her life and her life is her art". All of her paintings incorporate personal objects in still life form. They are mostly from the rural environment of her Oneonta, N.Y. home, where she spends half the year painting.
Sondra Freckelton feels that her work tells a visual tale of the history of our life in quilts, pillows and handiwork of all types as well as the bounty of the earth. She feels that the chronicling of this history is more important to her work than mere aesthetic usage. Freckelton works from living, ever-changing subjects in nature like flowers and vegetables incorporating them together with the handiwork and delicate creations of artisans.
Personally, I love her work and I am particularly struck by her use of detail, light, color and composition. One painting in particular is Blue Colander. This watercolor is 29" x 31 and 1/2". Blue Colander Blue Colander was painted in 1977 and belongs to a private collection. I love all of her paintings but this one especially. In this particular painting Sondra Freckelton uses cast shadows as part of her composition and they are as important to the composition as the objects in it.
I love the way the light floods the painting and found it particularly interesting the way she repeated the shape of the corn kernels on the colander, spatula and even in the table cloth. Blue Colander painting is cool in color. The colors have a purity and vibrancy. The objects in the painting depict some of Freckelton's favorite subject matter. Home spun embroidery, home grown vegetables and homey articles...all bathed in the bounty of warm sunlight. It reminded me of the Dutch painter Vermeer and his use of light through a window. In Blue Colander you don't see a window, but you feel it. The line on the tablecloth moves your eye around the painting as well as the repetition of shape. In spite of the over-powering color of the colander, I think the total design of the painting prevents the colander from dominating the whole piece.
Sondra Freckelton has truly mastered her medium and has accomplished her goal. The direct influence of the super-realists has been to prove that photographic quality can be attained without a camera. I believe that her skill and expression have challenged me and made me more ambitious and daring in my simple little projects. She is a technician who incorporates skill, intellect and emotion into her work. She is adept at reproducing the visual world in her watercolors. She can be quoted as saying: "A painting which is just a solution of intellectual problems, or which is simply a record of visual fact, is not a painting to me. Only when these things are combined, chosen, and juggled by the artist do they become interesting for me to look at. A work combining sense and sensibility is a work of art. Anything less is a fragment." Sondra Freckelton truly exhibits both sense and sensibility in her work and is example of an artist respected in the art community today.
