PAINTERS MAKE FRIENDSHIP AN ART

Sue Spencer, foreground, and sister-in-law Shirley Guard, travel from Perryville each Tuesday morning to take part in the painting class. They have been members of the group for some time.

Famed painter Pablo Picasso said that art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life. If this is true, a group of local artists have been cleansing their souls together for nearly 16 years now.

Artists from Jackson, Perryville, Scott City and Cape Girardeau gather once a week in the rural Jackson home of Elwanda Sebaugh for conversation, constructive criticism and instruction in the art of oil painting.

The class started in 1979 in a Cape Girardeau craft shop owned by Nancy Collier of Jackson, a commercial sign painter who continues to instruct the class.

"I initially started the class in the fall of 1979 when we had the arts and craft shop -- The Painting Place -- in Cape," she explained. "When we closed the shop in the spring of 1984 to start a sign painting business, the ladies didn't want to give up the class so Elwanda agreed to have the classes here in her basement so it's been here since the fall of 1984."

Of the nearly 20 students who take part in one of the two classes held each week -- either Tuesday morning or Wednesday evening -- a few, like Sebaugh and Jinny Buchheit of Perryville, have been members since day one. Others have joined the group within the past several years.

The class has an atmosphere not unlike that of an old-fashioned quilting bee or social club. Conversation is as prominent during the sessions as the sound of paint being blended on palettes and brushes being swished in cleaning solution. Members say that what they enjoy most about the weekly classes is the fact that they are unhurried and give each painter the chance to solicit constructive tips from fellow artists, including Collier.

"I think what everyone likes about the class is that it has a workshop atmosphere," said Collier. "It is like being in a workshop, as opposed to having a classroom atmosphere, and I think when you have that type of atmosphere, you tend to want to do your painting then.

"When they get into class with the other students, it seems to motivate them."

"Everyone works at their own pace," added Collier. "Some are able to do 60 pieces in a year's time; others may only turn out two."

For many of the artists, the class is a first formal introduction to art.

Sebaugh, who hosts the meetings in her home, enrolled in the course when Collier first began instructing it in 1979. She had never had any education in art before, nor had she ever taken part in any artistic endeavors prior to the start of the course. She was simply interested in painting.

"I had never painted before and I really thought I was wasting my money," she laughed. "But when I started the course, I liked it from the very start."

When Collier sold her arts and crafts store in the spring of 1984, Sebaugh and the other budding painters began taking instruction from other area painters, but this never really worked out.

"One day I came down here to my basement and started looking around," explained Sebaugh. "It was just a basement room then and my husband kept his canoe down here but I started thinking, "This would be a great painting room.'"

With a few adjustments, a painting room was what the Sebaughs' basement area became and since the fall of 1984, it has been the home of the painting class.

"It's more than a painting class, really," said Sebaugh. "We have a lot of camaraderie down here. Almost everyone in the class has been here since the beginning or has been here for awhile so we know each other and we can go around during class and critique each other's work and help each other if we can.

"It's good to know that [the criticism] is done in a good way and a lot of times, we go around the class and ask each other for help."

During last week's session, Carol Rhodes of Cape Girardeau set up a painting of a late 19th century or early 20th century Christmas scene she'd painted several years ago. Rhodes felt as though the people who appear in the scene lacked prominence. With the painting resting on an easel at the front of the room, she hoped her classmates would inspect the work and offer some suggestions on how to bring the subjects to the forefront.

"I think our favorite thing here is all the friends we've made," Rhodes said in explaining her openness in putting her work up for inspection.

Shirley Guard of Perryville agrees. She has been a member of the group since 1989 and travels to Jackson each week with her sister-in-law, Sue Spencer, who enrolled in 1992.

"We have a lot of fun here," said Guard, who likened her involvement in art and the painting group to an addiction. She has taken art instruction at Southeast Missouri State University in the past and has also sold several of her paintings to collectors.

"It's a very compatible group," Guard explained. "The class is a lot of fun, we have a good instructor and it's good therapy."

Guard is not the only class member to have work recognized by the public. Members of the group have in the past had their work exhibited at the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts' Gallery 100 in Cape Girardeau. Collier feels the talents of many of her students have progressed enough to make them accomplished artists. However, many continue to take part in the class because of its nurturing atmosphere.

"A lot of the students have the ability to do the painting on their own but when they get into class with the other students, it motivates them," she said.