The Issue of ‘Style’

A background as a commercial artist led this talented Queenslander to feel that she may have been tainted with an ‘illustrative’ style. Today, her fresh view of the world and her painterly pastel works emphatically dispel her concerns.

Professional artist Ann Russell began her career as a high school art teacher, before switching to commercial art for ten years. Some time after the birth of her children she found herself disenchanted with her work. A decision was made to return to the arena of fine art.

“Some years ago, I took up painting seriously again,” Ann relates. “But I spent quite a long time trying to rid myself of the illustrative style I had developed as a commercial artist … a style which gallery managers found less than impressive.”

Ann Russell believes that the commercial and fine art worlds are not easily compatible in philosophy, and ‘style’ became a huge issue for her.

“There seemed to be a very definite right and wrong,” she says. “And mine was apparently wrong.”

Ann was encouraged by the material published in Artist’s Palette magazine – ‘encompassing, as it does, every imaginable style and embracing each as art’. She also found comfort in reading Julia Cameron’s ‘The Artist’s Way’, which strongly encourages art as a spiritual exercise and supports the idea that we are all artists of one type or another. From Julia’s book, Ann gleaned the philosophy that ‘if you just show up and do the work, and allow yourself to make bad art, then the good art will eventually follow’.

Three years ago, Ann agreed to teach community art classes – inheriting the role from one of her friends who was moving away.

“As a former art teacher, this was easy for me,” she explains. “I really wasn’t expecting to love the work, though.”

Ann soon discovered that the work was more than satisfying for her, and she had a real affection for the topic and the people who came to learn from her.

“What I love the most is watching people who are actually quite frightened when they first come – afraid of failure and criticism,” Ann says. “I love to watch them developing confidence in their own abilities; and growing a passion for creativity, with an almost missional zeal in their approach to giving things a go.”

She goes on to describe an important shift in her own views about art, which has perhaps been the turning point in her attitude towards her own artistic work.

“I now passionately believe that art is not something that should be reserved for the gifted few. It is not a mysterious ability that we have either been blessed with or not. All visual art techniques are teachable and therefore learnable … it is what artists put in of themselves that makes their individual efforts original and unique.”

Ann Russell teaches from the viewpoint that people can have access to whatever she knows in order to equip them to produce the art they need to make.

“I do not have to worry that students may become better than me (and I know of teachers who always keep something back to ensure this doesn’t happen) because they will always be different to me,” she explains.

As a consequence, Ann does not agree with teaching art as a ‘style’ … and she does not support the concept that ‘he who sells the most work for the biggest bucks wins’.

“The therapeutic value of art is its inherent and most important quality, which everyone should have access to,” she maintains. “This is what I try to impart to my students; not just the adults, but also the 100 or so children who attend my classes and workshops each year. My approach is always positive. I give advice and tips, but never criticise.”

Ann Russell has a string of qualifications in art and art teaching, together with a list of awards and commendations for her work. In recent years her pictures have been featured in several solo and group exhibitions in south-east Queensland. She has also received some commissions.

A staunch supporter of Artist’s Palette magazine, Ann speaks about our publication in glowing terms.

“I recommend your magazine to my students because it completely underlines what I am trying to get across … in order to qualify as an artist, you just have to make art.”

In summing up her views on artistic style, Ann Russell has this to say:

“My emphasis is always on process rather than product – I believe that everyone is creative; and I believe everyone can use art to express their ideas.”

Ann’s clever ideas are beautifully expressed in pastels these days … in a style which is truly her own.