“You never know what will inspire you,” Dianne Burris said, standing among works gathered for her first gallery show.
Indeed, the pieces included in her Gulf/South Art Gallery show, “A Brush with Inspiration,” came from many memories and experiences.
One of the pieces with deepest meaning for her, “View from a Vieux Carre Balcony, 1934,” came from a photograph taken in the French Quarter that hung in a bedroom in her grandmother’s — and later her aunt’s — house. Her grandmother, born in 1872 and whom she never met, lived in the French Quarter for some time, perhaps in the apartment with the pictured balcony.
As a child visiting her aunt, she stared at the photograph frequently.
Later, Burris’ intrigue with the picture grew after she inherited the house. On the back, 20 women’s names were listed. She doesn’t know why.
Still, she loved the picture.
“I wanted to make it bigger,” Burris said. “It’s just a photo taken from a balcony.”
And it’s connected to her grandmother and her aunt, who also were artists. Burris has several pieces of her grandmother’s work, drawn in charcoal on rolled canvas.
Her grandmother “was married at 30 and had five children,” she said. From that point, she produced no more art.
Burris’ artistic talent emerged early, with a natural ability to draw almost anything she saw.
“No one had to tell me I had a gift — though some people did,” Burris said. “I could just look at something, pick up a pencil and draw it.
“You know how friends just ask, ‘How do you do that?’ I know it’s a God-given gift.”
She uses her gift on works in acrylic, oil and watercolor; on canvases large and small; in realist and abstract styles; and on subjects near and far.
Large framed canvases in the exhibit show Brentwood House and the railroad depot in McComb. Other works show Tuscan villas and vistas, some seen only in photographs, others painted with the aid of memories gathered while taking a watercolor workshop in Italy. Still other pieces are reminiscent of Jackson Pollock and other abstract artists.
“I was always drawing or doing something” artistic, she said. “I didn’t really have time to paint until I quit teaching.”
After teaching in elementary schools for 20 years, Burris earned certification in teaching public school art. She has retired from school teaching completely now, but continues teaching art lessons at her home studio in Smithdale.
“I can look at something and transfer it to paper or canvas,” she said. “I can teach people to enjoy art and create using whatever their gift is. Everybody has a gift, and they should use it.”
Open house for the show at Gulf/South Art Gallery will be 1:30-3:30 p.m.Sunday. The show runs through Sept. 7.
