TAMAQUA — Artwork, no matter how abstract, can say something about the personality of its maker.
Over the past two weeks, more than 50 students at Tamaqua Area High School got insight into creation and interpretation when they participated in a workshop with a local painter.
Lance W. Rautzhan, North Manheim Township, a multidisciplinary artist whose primary practice is painting, introduced them to “narrative art.”
“To get us started on the project, we will gather three objects. You will photograph, find photographs or draw the following objects: an object that represents you, a random object you are drawn to and an object belonging to someone who has influenced you,” Rautzhan said at the start of the project.
“The idea would be that three seemingly unrelated objects can come together to tell a story,” Lori Remmel, high school graphic art teacher, said.
On Monday, 54 students who participated showed off their work.
“How’s your painting coming along?” Rautzhan asked senior Kaelyn Boran-Smith as he walked in with homemade cold coffee sealed in a mason jar.
“I added more to it,” Boran-Smith said.
Her painting was completed by the time class started Monday.
“I chose my Kutztown hoodie, because that’s where I’m going to college, a carton of diet green tea and a Fitbit, because I’m a very fit person. I play three sports and constantly run around doing stuff,” she said, referring to the activity tracker around her wrist. “It tells you the time, your steps, your heart rate and how many miles you walked, your calories and how many flights of steps you did.”
She had to find a way to represent all three in her painting, which features the word “Kutztown” repeated numerous times in a collage framed by numbers, statistics she pulled from her Fitbit.
“Those were my steps on different days. I started March 28 and they go up until Friday,” she said.
Victoria LaBar, a senior, dedicated her project to her love for animals. Her illustration features an orca and an alligator and the kind of bars that keep them on display in pens.
“My three objects were an orca whale, an alligator ring I had and a rock at the end of a chain that tells you the truth about things, like a pendant,” LaBar said.
“In my design, what is being shown is pretty simple to interpret. Earlier this year, SeaWorld announced that the generation of orcas they have now is going to be the last generation. This is exciting, but they still are keeping this generation there,” LaBar said.
In her project, she expressed that by cutting into the fabric, suggesting the orca is being “harpooned.”
“The contrast of the bars behind the orca and the harpoon in his body ties this together. Behind bars you will find the alligator coming out. This shows that although animals are breaking out of bars, there are still very many animals struggling. This artwork shows how strongly I feel towards animal rights and activism,” LaBar said.
“The edge of this canvas is lined in black because I feel as though this is a dark situation that everyone likes to look over and not put light onto,” LaBar said.
“Also, I scraped the canvas with a razor blade mimicking the rake marks orcas get from other orcas at SeaWorld,” LaBar said.
Boran-Smith said one of the best parts of this project had nothing to do with art: “It was cool meeting Lance.”
Rautzhan is the son of the late Lance G. Rautzhan, who pitched in the 1977 and 1978 World Series for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Rautzhan graduated from Blue Mountain High School in 1992.
According to his website, www.lancerautzhan.info, he studied social theory and philosophy at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from there in 1996.
“He moved to Long Island City, Queens, in 1997 to study acting under Catherine Russell and make small works on paper. In 1999, Rautzhan took a large studio in Baltimore, Maryland, where he would go on to cultivate his body of work and exhibit heavily for six years. After securing gallery representation in Baltimore, Rautzhan moved his studio to Bushwick, Brooklyn, in 2006. He would continue to work in Brooklyn until conceding to gentrification in 2014,” according to the site.
His work has been shown in numerous galleries and has been collected and published internationally.
“In 2013, he was chosen for and completed a residency with DNA Gallery in Provincetown. His aesthetic influences include ’70s animation, avant-garde film and Keith Richards. He values slow burning substance as a hallmark of intelligence in art. Currently, he works in a large barn in the Appalachian Mountains of rural Eastern Pennsylvania,” according to the site.