Sunday, 05 October 2008
IVA — Oscar Velasquez, a nationally known artist, started his artistic career when he was a child by drawing in notebooks.
Now that he’s worked on murals across the country and abroad, he’s going to try and pass on some of that love of the arts — and even how the arts tie into other school subjects — to local children. From today through Friday, Velasquez will be repainting a mural he created on the side of Brown’s 5 and 10 Variety Store in Iva, and he is inviting school children or even art classes to come watch him work.
“This way they can understand that there is more to painting than just getting up there and painting,” Velasquez said.
The mural, which depicts Iva’s old Atlantic Seaboard railroad station, is 60-foot by 20-foot piece that covers the variety store’s entire right wall. In 1991, he painted the piece based on the image on an 1890 postcard of the town’s train depot. He said he uses math to help him paint something from a small scale to a larger one.
That is what he wants to demonstrate to school children.
Reviva, a nonprofit group committed to improving Iva and preserving its history, commissioned Velasquez to paint the scene. Then Velasquez, who now lives in Ohio, and his wife were residents of Abbeville. He had painted various prints of local landmarks — including scenes of Iva, the Abbeville Opera House, Pendleton’s Farmers Hall, Clemson’s Ben Tillman Clock Tower and the Anderson County Courthouse, said Reviva Director Yvonee McGee.
The mural he painted in Iva was his first outdoor mural. Since then he has painted roughly 32 other murals, one of which is in Yugoslavia.
Now, Reviva has invited Velasquez back to Iva. He will not only repaint Iva’s mural, but he will be on hand at Iva’s Depot Days on Oct. 11.
He will sign prints of his that will be for sale there that depict of scenes of Iva and of Anderson-area landmarks, McGee said.
McGee said Reviva also plans to commission Velasquez to do another mural and to complete a watercolor collage of Iva’s churches.
Source: independentmail.com
