PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST
By Bora Mici - April 23, 2011
A Portrait of the Artist: Estelle Zorman
Estelle Zorman paints the invisible.
Estelle Zorman, who is currently showing her work at Kentlands Mansion in the 25th Annual Spring Gaithersburg Fine Arts Association (GFAA) juried show, paints vivid watercolors that express the invisible.
Her pieces are born within, and even though she is inspired by nature and her surroundings, Zorman brings her innermost experiences and revelations to her artwork.
Zorman was born in Kranj, Slovenia and lived there through until 1945 at the end of World War II. There she began drawing at a young age alongside her aunt who would babysit her. They would draw figures together.
At the end of World War II, Zorman and her family emigrated to Austria, where they spent five years in a soldier's camp. In 1950 they were sponsored to move to the US to be apple pickers in West Virginia. By the time they arrived, apple picking season was over and they were sent to North Carolina to be tobacco pickers instead. Spending the first two years of their time in the United States in North Carolina, they eventually sought out a Slovenian community and moved to Cleveland, Ohio.
"My father moved there first, and then us seven children and our mother followed," said Zorman. "I went to school and learned English."
When she was ready for college, Zorman wanted to pursue her passion for art, but her family and friends discouraged her from going into a profession that would most likely not be very stable or profitable. Zorman studied Elementary Education and ultimately got a Master's degree in the field as well.
"I taught for 10 years. I always had my students do a lot of illustration in class. They loved it! Then I met someone, married him and moved with him to the Washington, DC-area in 1971," said Zorman who had three kids of her own and raised them as a stay-at-home mom. In the evening, she took evening studio art classes at Montgomery College. When her youngest entered kindergarden, Zorman started taking daytime classes in Art History, Printmaking, Painting and Drawing. She explored multiple media in painting, including oil, acrylic and watercolor.
Primarily a watercolor artist, she started exhibiting, selling and winning prizes and awards for her work in 1978.
"By the 1980s I was having 2-3 solo shows per year," said the artist. "I had a lot of energy even with the kids."
Zorman showed primarily in the Washington, DC-area.
"I wanted to be local," she said.
Zorman has had various solo shows at Framer's Choice Gallery, Frame Studio Gallery, the Unitarian Universalist Church among others.
Her award-winning work has also been shown at the Bird in Hand Gallery in East Capitol Hill.
"The most prestigious award I have ever won was the Gold Medal from the Baltimore Watercolor Society. It's the most important award I have ever received because there are a lot of states represented in that show," she said.
Zorman holds various local affiliations. She is a member of the Gaithersburg Fine Arts Association, the Potomac Watercolor Associaton, Strathmore, the Senior Artists Alliance and the Rockville Art League. For the latter she serves on the phone committee, and for the GFAA, she organizes shows and used to be in charge of programming and public events.
Zorman also teaches watercolor classes at the Montgomery College Lifelong Learning Institute and a painting class for seniors at the senior center near the intersection of Clopper Road and Quince Orchard Road.
"I still speak Slovenian and keep ties to Slovenia," said Zorman. "In 1984, I visited my relatives there, and realized how close I still felt to them and how much I had missed them."
The artist reestablished her connection to her roots by participating in a World Wide Art Contest in Slovenia more recently.
"Most of the participants were of Slovenian background. We painted in Most Na Soci, and the other artists came from all over the world, including countries like Argentina, Austria, Sweden, the US, the former Yugoslavia and even Australia."
Zorman noticed some trends in the work of her international counterparts:
"In 1996 most artists were doing abstraction. I was one of the few doing realism. My newer paintings now lean toward abstraction, but they are very simple. I think there are more realists in the United States, but more artists here are getting more and more abstract recently. If you paint long enough, your work gets more abstract. At least, that's what I think. Ultimately, we all have our own styles because it all comes from us."
Zorman's work is inspired by her spiritual investment. She participates in a spiritual community and meditates on "living by love." Her interest in New Earth Spirituality guides her to preserve the earth, bring peace to her fellow human beings and raise human consciousness.
"I don't participate in organized religion. I seek to follow my inner voice or god-self," said Zorman who uses her belief to achieve inner peace and resolve conflict in her own life.
"I derive inspiration from landscapes and flowers, but above all, from my inner life. Art is a form of spiritual expression, and my paintings are symbolic. I believe that trees, animals, and other people are manifestations of the invisible."
Estelle Zorman paints both on-site and from photographs. Her paintings are medium-sized, and her work includes paintings from a decade of travels to England, Spain, Morocco and France. She sells her work privately from her home studio and gallery - New Dawn Gallery.
Upcoming shows include a May 21-22, 2011 group show at the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery in Glen Echo, Maryland, as well as a solo show at Framer's Choice Gallery in Kentlands, Gaithersburg, Maryland in October.
"I have a lot of paintings exploring light and shadow relationships, so my solo show will be called 'The Arrival of the Light,'" said Zorman who admires the work of Vincent Van Gogh and Charles Birchfield.
To find out more about Estelle Zorman, click here.
To contact the artist directly, email her at newdawnartist@gmail.com.
A Portrait of the Artist: Estelle Zorman
Estelle Zorman paints the invisible.
Estelle Zorman, who is currently showing her work at Kentlands Mansion in the 25th Annual Spring Gaithersburg Fine Arts Association (GFAA) juried show, paints vivid watercolors that express the invisible.
Her pieces are born within, and even though she is inspired by nature and her surroundings, Zorman brings her innermost experiences and revelations to her artwork.
Zorman was born in Kranj, Slovenia and lived there through until 1945 at the end of World War II. There she began drawing at a young age alongside her aunt who would babysit her. They would draw figures together.
At the end of World War II, Zorman and her family emigrated to Austria, where they spent five years in a soldier's camp. In 1950 they were sponsored to move to the US to be apple pickers in West Virginia. By the time they arrived, apple picking season was over and they were sent to North Carolina to be tobacco pickers instead. Spending the first two years of their time in the United States in North Carolina, they eventually sought out a Slovenian community and moved to Cleveland, Ohio.
"My father moved there first, and then us seven children and our mother followed," said Zorman. "I went to school and learned English."
When she was ready for college, Zorman wanted to pursue her passion for art, but her family and friends discouraged her from going into a profession that would most likely not be very stable or profitable. Zorman studied Elementary Education and ultimately got a Master's degree in the field as well.
"I taught for 10 years. I always had my students do a lot of illustration in class. They loved it! Then I met someone, married him and moved with him to the Washington, DC-area in 1971," said Zorman who had three kids of her own and raised them as a stay-at-home mom. In the evening, she took evening studio art classes at Montgomery College. When her youngest entered kindergarden, Zorman started taking daytime classes in Art History, Printmaking, Painting and Drawing. She explored multiple media in painting, including oil, acrylic and watercolor.
Primarily a watercolor artist, she started exhibiting, selling and winning prizes and awards for her work in 1978.
"By the 1980s I was having 2-3 solo shows per year," said the artist. "I had a lot of energy even with the kids."
Zorman showed primarily in the Washington, DC-area.
"I wanted to be local," she said.
Zorman has had various solo shows at Framer's Choice Gallery, Frame Studio Gallery, the Unitarian Universalist Church among others.
Her award-winning work has also been shown at the Bird in Hand Gallery in East Capitol Hill.
"The most prestigious award I have ever won was the Gold Medal from the Baltimore Watercolor Society. It's the most important award I have ever received because there are a lot of states represented in that show," she said.
Zorman holds various local affiliations. She is a member of the Gaithersburg Fine Arts Association, the Potomac Watercolor Associaton, Strathmore, the Senior Artists Alliance and the Rockville Art League. For the latter she serves on the phone committee, and for the GFAA, she organizes shows and used to be in charge of programming and public events.
Zorman also teaches watercolor classes at the Montgomery College Lifelong Learning Institute and a painting class for seniors at the senior center near the intersection of Clopper Road and Quince Orchard Road.
"I still speak Slovenian and keep ties to Slovenia," said Zorman. "In 1984, I visited my relatives there, and realized how close I still felt to them and how much I had missed them."
The artist reestablished her connection to her roots by participating in a World Wide Art Contest in Slovenia more recently.
"Most of the participants were of Slovenian background. We painted in Most Na Soci, and the other artists came from all over the world, including countries like Argentina, Austria, Sweden, the US, the former Yugoslavia and even Australia."
Zorman noticed some trends in the work of her international counterparts:
"In 1996 most artists were doing abstraction. I was one of the few doing realism. My newer paintings now lean toward abstraction, but they are very simple. I think there are more realists in the United States, but more artists here are getting more and more abstract recently. If you paint long enough, your work gets more abstract. At least, that's what I think. Ultimately, we all have our own styles because it all comes from us."
Zorman's work is inspired by her spiritual investment. She participates in a spiritual community and meditates on "living by love." Her interest in New Earth Spirituality guides her to preserve the earth, bring peace to her fellow human beings and raise human consciousness.
"I don't participate in organized religion. I seek to follow my inner voice or god-self," said Zorman who uses her belief to achieve inner peace and resolve conflict in her own life.
"I derive inspiration from landscapes and flowers, but above all, from my inner life. Art is a form of spiritual expression, and my paintings are symbolic. I believe that trees, animals, and other people are manifestations of the invisible."
Estelle Zorman paints both on-site and from photographs. Her paintings are medium-sized, and her work includes paintings from a decade of travels to England, Spain, Morocco and France. She sells her work privately from her home studio and gallery - New Dawn Gallery.
Upcoming shows include a May 21-22, 2011 group show at the Yellow Barn Studio and Gallery in Glen Echo, Maryland, as well as a solo show at Framer's Choice Gallery in Kentlands, Gaithersburg, Maryland in October.
"I have a lot of paintings exploring light and shadow relationships, so my solo show will be called 'The Arrival of the Light,'" said Zorman who admires the work of Vincent Van Gogh and Charles Birchfield.
To find out more about Estelle Zorman, click here.
To contact the artist directly, email her at newdawnartist@gmail.com.
Kentlands Mansion Gallery Hosts Multi Media Exhibit
Posted 11/9/2009
Estelle Zorman
A multi media exhibit featuring the works of John Hastie, Sheila Kaplan, Joan Lok, Jeanne Powell, Darla Tagrin, and Estelle Zorman will be on display at the City of Gaithersburg’s Kentlands Mansion Gallery from November 13, 2009 through January 10, 2010. Viewing is by appointment only. An artists’ reception will be held on Tuesday, December 1 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The Mansion is located at 320 Kent Square Road in Gaithersburg.
John Hastie paints primarily en plein air using various media, including watercolor, oil, pastel, and acrylic. He prefers to work rapidly to capture the fleeting light of nature and his approach ranges from realistic to interpretative, often using an impressionistic style. Subjects of interest include both well-known and obscure locales around Montgomery County. In 2007 Hastie was awarded the Sharon Sage award for best in show at the Gaithersburg Fine Arts Association exhibit and in 2008 he received a national Paint America 100 Award.
Involved in various artistic endeavors all her life, Sheila Kaplan started a serious study of oil painting 12 years ago, drawn to the infinite possibilities of expression with oil paints and the physicality of the paint itself. Her need to paint is fueled by the desire to capture the immediacy and fleeting moments of nature and the world around us, and she likes to create a sense of place, a physical reality of land and space and objects. With painting Kaplan hopes to bring the viewer back to the present moment, by seeing an image with new eyes, and to remind us of the preciousness of each moment.
Joan Lok is an artist and educator committed to creating artwork as a passage to harmony and cultural diversity. Born in Hong Kong, Lok came to America in 1983 after winning an international cultural exchange scholarship. One of her masterful landscapes won the 2005 National Cherry Blossom Festival Art Contest and was made into posters and used for merchandising. Committed to moving forward the awareness and appreciation of the art of brush painting outside Asia, Lok has been re-elected four times since 2002 to serve as the National President of the Sumi-e Society of America. From 2003 to 2007 she served as a Commissioner of the Maryland Governor’s Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs.
Jeanne Powell was introduced to the joy of painting while traveling as a photographic observer on international workshops with Walt Barman (Yellow Barn, Glen Echo). In 2003 her semi-retirement from a professional career as a research economist at NIST afforded her the time to pursue painting. With wonderful surprise, Powell found that plein air painting enriched her travel experience far beyond what her camera could, while introducing her to the beauty and variety of the Maryland landscape. Her paintings have been accepted in 10 juried shows sponsored by the Yellow Barn and the Gaithersburg Fine Arts Association, and she won a first prize in the 2006 Annual Montgomery Village Foundation Arts, Crafts and Photography Show.
From her childhood in rural New York state, Darla Tagrin’s heart has always been in the woods. She feels that the way that veins in a leaf are repeated in tree branches and roots, in a river system and in the blood vessels in your body offers a more profound truth than anything written on paper. On the road to becoming an artist, Tagrin has been a waitress, retail clerk, billboard designer, science fiction book and magazine illustrator, and orange picker. She believes that what we do influences what we see in the world, and her goal has always been to lead people to look at what is in front of them in new ways. Tagrin paints mainly in oils, leaving room for ambiguity and the viewer’s imagination, because for her, art should be a conversation rather than a lecture.
Encouraged to draw at a very young age by an aunt in her native Slovenia, Estelle Zorman used art to communicate with teachers and American friends before learning English. During ten years as an elementary school teacher, her students were always glad to hear Zorman say, “Ok, let’s illustrate this subject.” Often in her paintings of landscapes and seascapes are hidden and not-so-hidden symbols of realities beyond what we can see with our physical eyes. For Zorman, creating a painting is life giving and joyful. It is also her way of playing, and play for her is one of the highest of human activities. Her watercolor and acrylic paintings live all over the world, as far as Australia, Korea, Hawaii, Canada, Slovenia, and throughout the United States.
Please note that all images are copyrighted by the artists. For more information please call Gallery Director Natalya Parris at 301-258-6350 or 301-258-6394. For viewing appointments please contact the Mansion staff at 301-258-6425 and learn more about the Mansion at www.gaithersburgmd.gov/kentlandsmansion.
Estelle Zorman
A multi media exhibit featuring the works of John Hastie, Sheila Kaplan, Joan Lok, Jeanne Powell, Darla Tagrin, and Estelle Zorman will be on display at the City of Gaithersburg’s Kentlands Mansion Gallery from November 13, 2009 through January 10, 2010. Viewing is by appointment only. An artists’ reception will be held on Tuesday, December 1 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. The Mansion is located at 320 Kent Square Road in Gaithersburg.
John Hastie paints primarily en plein air using various media, including watercolor, oil, pastel, and acrylic. He prefers to work rapidly to capture the fleeting light of nature and his approach ranges from realistic to interpretative, often using an impressionistic style. Subjects of interest include both well-known and obscure locales around Montgomery County. In 2007 Hastie was awarded the Sharon Sage award for best in show at the Gaithersburg Fine Arts Association exhibit and in 2008 he received a national Paint America 100 Award.
Involved in various artistic endeavors all her life, Sheila Kaplan started a serious study of oil painting 12 years ago, drawn to the infinite possibilities of expression with oil paints and the physicality of the paint itself. Her need to paint is fueled by the desire to capture the immediacy and fleeting moments of nature and the world around us, and she likes to create a sense of place, a physical reality of land and space and objects. With painting Kaplan hopes to bring the viewer back to the present moment, by seeing an image with new eyes, and to remind us of the preciousness of each moment.
Joan Lok is an artist and educator committed to creating artwork as a passage to harmony and cultural diversity. Born in Hong Kong, Lok came to America in 1983 after winning an international cultural exchange scholarship. One of her masterful landscapes won the 2005 National Cherry Blossom Festival Art Contest and was made into posters and used for merchandising. Committed to moving forward the awareness and appreciation of the art of brush painting outside Asia, Lok has been re-elected four times since 2002 to serve as the National President of the Sumi-e Society of America. From 2003 to 2007 she served as a Commissioner of the Maryland Governor’s Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs.
Jeanne Powell was introduced to the joy of painting while traveling as a photographic observer on international workshops with Walt Barman (Yellow Barn, Glen Echo). In 2003 her semi-retirement from a professional career as a research economist at NIST afforded her the time to pursue painting. With wonderful surprise, Powell found that plein air painting enriched her travel experience far beyond what her camera could, while introducing her to the beauty and variety of the Maryland landscape. Her paintings have been accepted in 10 juried shows sponsored by the Yellow Barn and the Gaithersburg Fine Arts Association, and she won a first prize in the 2006 Annual Montgomery Village Foundation Arts, Crafts and Photography Show.
From her childhood in rural New York state, Darla Tagrin’s heart has always been in the woods. She feels that the way that veins in a leaf are repeated in tree branches and roots, in a river system and in the blood vessels in your body offers a more profound truth than anything written on paper. On the road to becoming an artist, Tagrin has been a waitress, retail clerk, billboard designer, science fiction book and magazine illustrator, and orange picker. She believes that what we do influences what we see in the world, and her goal has always been to lead people to look at what is in front of them in new ways. Tagrin paints mainly in oils, leaving room for ambiguity and the viewer’s imagination, because for her, art should be a conversation rather than a lecture.
Encouraged to draw at a very young age by an aunt in her native Slovenia, Estelle Zorman used art to communicate with teachers and American friends before learning English. During ten years as an elementary school teacher, her students were always glad to hear Zorman say, “Ok, let’s illustrate this subject.” Often in her paintings of landscapes and seascapes are hidden and not-so-hidden symbols of realities beyond what we can see with our physical eyes. For Zorman, creating a painting is life giving and joyful. It is also her way of playing, and play for her is one of the highest of human activities. Her watercolor and acrylic paintings live all over the world, as far as Australia, Korea, Hawaii, Canada, Slovenia, and throughout the United States.
Please note that all images are copyrighted by the artists. For more information please call Gallery Director Natalya Parris at 301-258-6350 or 301-258-6394. For viewing appointments please contact the Mansion staff at 301-258-6425 and learn more about the Mansion at www.gaithersburgmd.gov/kentlandsmansion.