Jean Opitz , in her first career, taught art
both in Jr. and Sr. High School.
She has painted in oils and acrylics but is currently mastering watercolors.
Jean paints mainly nature/pastoral scenes attempting to convey the mood and
essence of a view.
Jean is a practicing personal therapist and resides in Willmar.
South Hwy 71
Svea, Minn
{p}320.231.2696
Monica Villars earned her MFA at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design. She works in a variety of mediums with a concentration in fibers. Her work has a concentration in western style paper making both sprayed and pulled, and contemporary quilting. She is an art teacher at the Willmar area Learning Center and the co-founder of DEMO inc. DEMO inc provides authentic studio spaces for educational art experiences in a variety of mediums. The paper studio is unique to the area and compares to those at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design and Open Book, both located in Minneapolis.
My art is a love for, and exploration of, material, texture, symbolism, and meaning, and of the elegant dress form. I approach my work with a sense of humor as well as a seriousness of underlying meaning and complexity. My inspiration comes equally from the language of the material and a quest to better understand myself, and where I come from. My work is an expression of the duality of being through the contradictory contrast of materials from the organic to the synthetic, light vs. heavy, translucent vs. opaque, fragile vs. unbending, external vs. internal, and so on. I am particularly interested in how the material speaks to me, in and of itself, in contrast between the delicate burgundy chiffon insert with its comparable fragility to the earthly, fence-like quality of the rooted twigs.
I became interested in the three-dimensional dress form as a ‘stand-in’, and expression for, the famine body. I am interested in the idea of clothing, in its use and meaning in society, and in the ‘clothing’ of nature. For example, the birch bark dress explores the beauty and elegance of the delicate yet protective birch bark tree in nature, and of our own use of clothing as a protective layer or barrier both physically and psychologically.
I plan to continue to explore and develop my work conceptually and materially through further investigation of the dress theme in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional form.
