 | ||
 | ||
 |
| |
 | ||
|
<< Go Back to Media Page |
[ Twin Tier Times ] ARTS & CULTURE Section 
Sometimes Marla Olmstead would rather eat potato chips than create art.
Even though staunch art lovers have already gobbled up eight of her abstracts –some in the thousand dollar range-she seems perfectly content to sit poolside and munch away; shunning any fanfare. When she talks, there’s times when painting seems the furthest thing from her mind. Hey, she’s 4 years old. Even Picasso waited until he was 7. Marla’s abstract paintings look more like the brainchild of a honed artist than a bubbly little girl with a wide smile who paints just for kicks. In Marla’s work , the canvas’s surface is a background vehicle to let color express itself. Her paintings deliver immediate expression, raw and succinct and have an assortment of forms that breathe in and out amid flashes of contrasting hues and bolts of color. Accomplished local artist Anthony Brunelli holds an opening Friday at his gallery on State Street in Binghamton to show off about 18 of Marla's works. Labeling any of the diverse works in the show “childish” would be both demeaning and self-defeating. Brunelli knows the kid has talent. And he’s not the only one. Marla, who lives in Binghamton with her 2-year-old brother Zane, and parents Mark, 36, and Laura, 34, started painting around 2. Her father was busy painting and Marla wouldn’t leave him alone. Instead of shunning her, he let her take a brush and let the creative juices flow. Before he knew it, she was the one painting, with him relegated to the background to watch. He didn’t mind a bit. “She usually just goes. She might talk about what the images are, but most of the time she just paints,” he said of her modus operandi. “She’ll draw pictures of bugs and people, but when she paints, it is not of subjects.” When she paints, Marla uses acrylic paint, brushes, squirt bottles, spatulas, and the ideal child stand-by: her fingers. She usually takes care of the creative part while her father opens the paint bottles, buys the canvas and sticks close by to see what she creates next. Marla, a soon-to-be pre-kindergarten student, also prefers painting in the morning. “She’ll start by squirting on the paint and moving it around. She appears very serious when she’s doing it. “Mark Olmstead said. “She seems to have control of the situation and what she’s doing.” Each painting takes about two or three sittings, and Mark Olmstead admitted he doesn’t know when Marla’s done, only she does. She will often paint something he loves and then go over it. But the final results are always quality. Of course, Zane, a cute-as-a-button toddler who shares Marla’s penchant for potato chips, likes to take credit for the paintings. “If you ask him he’ll say he painted it,” his father said with a laugh Friday as he watched Marla take a dip in the neighbor’s pool. ”He loves it all.” Although Mark Olmstead, the former quarterback of the Binghamton High School football team, loves what his daughter does, he doesn’t push her. He encourages her to paint, but if she doesn’t want to, it’s no big deal. A slice of Life in Marla’s world probably differs a lot than the Spanish-born Pablo Picasso. The only thing in common is that they probably both took a nap in the afternoon. Marla, with her long brown hair and dark eyes to match, likes her toys, especially her “Magna Doodle,” the first toy she ever had. Like any kid, she likes a cadre of films like Shrek and Ice Age. She likes to eat gnocchi and watches cooking shows with her mom, and especially Emeril with her grandmother. A sleepy Friday afternoon in her house goes something like this: Marla goes out to the neighbor’s pool with her inner-tube-wearing brother and her father. Mark helps Zane in and out of the pool before the playful Marla sits down for a pile of chips (Mark works for Lays) after eating her ice pop. “Can you break these with your fingers?” she chuckles as her parents watch on. She presses her finger into the middle of chip, breaking it into tiny pieces on the table. Brother follows suit with grin. When asked if she’s happy to show off her work, Marla nods, before returning to Potato Chips Cracking 101. Marla doesn’t always talk about her work, especially to strangers. “I paint because it’s fun…Me and Zane are shy” she said through her father as he shook hi head with a smile. Although her parents knew of Marla’s creativity, it was other people who realized her talent. Andy Stevens, co-owner of Coffee Talk, saw some of Marla’s paintings and wanted to hang them in his shop. The paintings gained a lot of attention from the community and the family decided to put prices on them. The first day a price went up on a painting on October, local couple Wayne and Sylvia Kerber, bought it for their son who lives in Washington D.C. “When Tony (Anthony Brunelli) found out about Marla, he was surprised. He knew me when I was younger,” Mark Olmstead said. Like any abstract, viewers can draw what they want from each of Marla’s works. Various visual manifestations appear to almost everyone who sees her work. In one of Marla’s works, it seems like there’s a red figure amid the swathes of color traversing the canvas. The Abstract Expressionism movement took place on the U.S. from themid-1940s to he 1960s and was centered in New York City. Artist like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko spearheaded a movement where the artist expresses themselves through the use of form and color. In the work, there’s no concrete object represented. Brunelli says Marla has something ‘unique.” When he first saw her work, he didn’t know how old she was. And to boot, he works in photorealism-where he tries to make the images he shoots as “real” as possible-and wasn’t an abstract enthusiast. He saw a video of her painting and showed it to other folks in the art world. “It was like ‘wow’ because her work has balance and form and the color composition was very impressive. I thought it was interesting and as I saw more and more, they kept getting better and better,” he said. “If she was 30 years old, you could sell her work for $ 50,000 a piece. I didn’t see how a 3-year-old could do it. Like most prodigies, it’s an innate sense. A lot of people go there whole lives without unearthing that talent. She has beautiful raw strokes only a child could get.” Brunelli said Marla’s father helped nurture her creativity and he told Mark to let her do what she wants; let no one change or influence her. Although she might be compared to prodigy Alexandra Nechita from Romania, who began drawing at 2 and painting at 7, Nechita’s work centers on more abstract symmetrical objects and color blending. Although she’s been labeled “The Petite Picasso,” Brunelli thinks Marla could be huge too. “She’s just wonderful,” he said. << Go Back to Media Page | | ||
| | 2005 Marla Olmstead © Copyright. All rights reserved. | | ||
|
| ||
|
| ||