AMAZING GRAZE
Paintings by Woody Jackson
July31st - August 31st
Frog Hollow’s upcoming show Amazing Graze depicts Woody Jacksons' endeavor to create a mythical Vermont and the fun that accompanies long-term creation. As an artist known for his paintings of brightly colored landscapes Jackson hopes that Amazing Graze will prompt spectators to take a second or even third look at what they might consider familiar. Bold highlights of Opera Pink existing alongside mellow grazing cows reference that imagined landscape. For Jackson, every venture in the studio is a new experience rather than a journey to an identical destination. Says Jackson “ As an artist you are creating, I want people to appreciate the little mistakes and delightful interchanges present in a work”. Amazing Grace featuring new large-scale watercolor paintings by Woody Jackson runs from July 28th through the 31st of August.
Woody Jackson was born October 9, 1948, in New Jersey and came to Vermont in 1966 to attend Middlebury College, where he majored in Asian and African history, but soon discovered his true calling in art. He spent the 70s doing farm work and traveling the world, learning the craft of printmaking and painting. He had his first one-man show at Middlebury College in April 1974 entitled “Cows”, and was accepted into a print gallery on Newbury Street in Boston in 1976. He ended the decade with two years earning an MFA at the Yale School of Art, before moving to Brooklyn to compete in the New York art world. Returning to Vermont in 1983, He began his Holy Cow Inc business selling cow t-shirts and other gift products to stores around the country, and a mail-order catalog to customers around the world. He married, had children, grew up, grew older, and lived for a year in Santa Fe, Bormio, Italy for the adventure, learning to speak Italian as well.
The last 40 years went by in a blur for Jackson but he still lives in Vermont with perpetual inspiration, six kids, a wonderful second marriage, and three grandsons too. He has simplified his life so he is his only employee and is concentrating on making new oils and gouache watercolor paintings. He continues to have fun in his new studio, playing with paints and speaking to the cows next door, the sheep too.
MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST
Woody has no cows of his own, but prefers to make his neighbor cows famous. Woody’s work stems from a long and close association with the farms and farmers of the Champlain Valley of Vermont. His early work, primarily as a printmaker, forced him to radically simplify. As the years have gone by, Woody’s work has grown more complex with overlays of color and more detail. However, he is still simplifying and allowing the paint to describe a sense and feeling of the objects in his field of vision. Woody hopes to convey discovery, imagination, pleasure and joy in a simple print.
