LUCKY JACKSON PAINTER EARNS HONORS

Blattner prefers to work with oil paints, which provide more "punch" than other types.

Blattner often hangs finished paintings on the wall in her dining room so that she can critique her work while having breakfast.

Connie Blattner brushes off the awards she's earned as an artist, maintaining that they are the result of luck.

One has to question that cavalier assessment after seeing Blattner's work.

Having entered her first art contest just a little more than a year ago, Blattner's rich paintings have already fielded several accolades, including the second place honor in a recent show sponsored by the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts.

Her oil paintings spangle walls throughout the rural Jackson home she shares with her husband Don. The canvasses include still life studies of flower and fruit arrangements, candlesticks, even the decorative bird houses Don builds and paints in his spare time. In some frames are paintings of daughters, mothers-in-law and grandchildren.

Blattner has been an artist in the traditional sense for only eight years. Although she had tried painting sporadically throughout her life, she was never happy with her work. Blattner's dissatisfaction with painting was so strong that she punctuated each failed effort with a four- to five-year hiatus from art, after which she would take up her brush and try again.

"I've always had an interest but never really had the time and wasn't really that pleased with what I got when I did try," explained Blattner.

She received her first lesson after retirement in 1987, when she was enrolled in a portrait painting class by her sister, who felt the instruction would provide Blattner with some good therapy. Blattner was recovering from an extended illness at the time.

Her teacher, whom Blattner now counts as a close friend, was and remains Cleda Curtis Neal of Oran.

"She is an excellent teacher and gave me the grounding and enthusiasm and ambition to continue," she said of Neal.

After a number of lessons, time constraints forced Blattner to practice painting on her own. Her studies soon migrated to still life paintings because they allowed her to pick and choose the kind of lighting, shapes and textures with which to work.

"Still lives have mostly been a learning process in order to take on different textures, shadows and lighting," Blattner said, explaining that she tries to paint a little of herself and her own interests into each study.

"Often in still lives, you like to include things that mean a lot to you," said Blattner. One painting of a bowl of fruit features a bright red bowl which had been given to her by her grandmother. Another still life features a set of candlesticks Blattner received from her brother many years ago.

All of the artist's paintings are done with oil paint, which provides "more punch than you can get with watercolors," said Blattner.

Still life studies soon gave way to portraiture. "The methods you use in still life and portraits are much the same," she explained, adding that the major difference is that apples and oranges are often much more willing to sit for portraits than are relatives.

"It's very hard for the people that you want to paint to come and sit for a painting when you have the time. Those two things just don't seem to go together," Blattner laughed.

In order to accommodate her subjects -- relatives, friends and the children of friends -- she has learned to draw from photographs. She complains that a camera's flash often washes out the color and shadow of the human face. As a result, she's learning more about 35 mm photography and film in order to take available light photographs and catch the true color and shadow of her subjects.

Although her talents were growing, she never considered entering an art showing or competition. It was only at the urging of her friend and instructor, Cleda Curtis Neal, that Blattner decided to host her first show, held in her home last spring. She held a second show shortly after at Jackson Manor, the nursing home where she does volunteer work. The favorable response the paintings received prompted Blattner to consider entering competitions.

"After those first two shows, I entered the SEMO Council on the Arts Show at Gallery 100 (in Cape Girardeau)," she said. "I won nothing there but [Neal] said, 'Keep trying,' and since then I have been very lucky."

The praise given her work by visitors to her art shows continued in art competitions. One oil painting was awarded a blue ribbon in a recent Sikeston Art Guild competition while she earned both second and third place honors during Southeast Missouri Hospital's "Art for the Health of It" show.

Her work came full circle last month when she reentered the art council's competition and was awarded the second place honor.

"I was amazed and shocked with that because I was among some really good artists and I wondered why they didn't win," she said.

Blattner isn't resting on her laurels. She continues to take part in classes at Neal's studio whenever she has the time.

"I enjoy the fellowship of the classes," she said. "It seems that without fail, the people in art classes are always pleasant."

While continuing to improve her skills in the oil painting genre, Blattner is embracing other mediums as well. She has begun working with pastels in the past few months and says that she would like to try landscape painting in the near future.

"I want to try everything I see but there's just not enough time," Blattner laughed. "I think at my age it would behoove me to stick to one thing and learn everything I can about that thing before moving on to another."