For Local Artist Fonny Davidson, Painting is an Expression of Self

FOR LOCAL ARTIST FONNY DAVIDSON,

PAINTING IS AN EXPRESSION OF SELF

The skill of En Plain Air artwork is a visualization of concentration.

Story Kaycie Yeager Photography by Allie Hullinger

For decades, art lovers and aficionados have admired, praised and collected west Boise artist Fonny Davidson’s gorgeous, ethereal oil paintings. While Fonny himself feels the process is more important than the end results, most viewers would likely dispute that claim, finding hours of enjoyment gazing upon his luminous colors, rich yet lightly abstracted images and elegant brushstrokes. While his life has encompassed a range of occupations, he has never wavered from his goal of spending his life as an artist.

Growing up in Wenatchee, Washington, his ties to the Northwest stir deep in his heart. “Boise and Wenatchee are much alike with lots of sagebrush,” says Fonny. “I’ve spent my whole life in the desert plateau and it’s ingrained in my soul. There is no way I could separate myself from it.” With the original intention of becoming a minister, he instead graduated from Northwest Nazarene College with a degree in English, teaching and art. After graduation, he stayed on at NNC to teach pottery for two years and then taught art in the Idaho public school system for ten years. While he spent significant time learning sculpture and pottery, the last 30 years have been devoted solely to painting.

“I create art because I’ve spent my life searching for who I am,” Fonny explains.

“I believe we are represented not by what car we drive or the clothes we wear, but by what we do. I’ve always been a creative individual and started discovering early on that when I created something, it was an expression of who I was.” For ten years, commercial fishing funded this creative passion. Fonny could devote a couple months to fishing in Alaska, which allowed him to return to Boise and paint full time for the balance of the year.

Fonny is known for his skillful “en plein air” paintings, a French term meaning “in the open air.” “Plein air painting is an exercise in concentration and visualization,” says Fonny. “The light and drama changes so quickly over the course of the painting session that you learn to see what you want and hold that image in your mind. As the light changes, you might take something from the beginning of the session and something from the end and put them together. Just about any place you go, if you catch the light at the right time, there’s something beautiful to work with.”

His studio work has become more prominent in the last few years and is based on thousands of hours of concentrated field study. The time in his studio is spent working from field sketches and photographs. One of the things that sets him apart are the shapes of his canvases, many of which are dramatically vertical or horizontal. “I can do big, rectangular landscapes but often the real action is happening right at the horizon,” he says. “There might be only one little section where the design really functions well -- the rest is irrelevant. Slicing the landscape in that way brings a certain immediacy and directness to the painting. The format emphasizes the key elements because you’ve cut out a lot of extraneous stuff, getting more to the essentials of what’s important.”

Fonny feels it is important for the viewer to become an active participant in the painting process through a visual dialog. Part of that conversation speaks not only to the paintings themselves but to the frames, which Fonny makes by hand with particular care. “When the frames are also made by the artist, the package is more complete and adds to the integrity of the piece,” Fonny says. “It’s that wholeness that’s important to me.” Beginning with raw wood, he shapes the molding with machines. After sanding, chopping, glueing and joining, frames get an application of gold-toned metal leaf and color. A final coating of shellac makes the surface gleam.

Fonny feels there is a ‘Rocky Mountain School of Painting’ developing. “I hope I’m part of that,” he explains. “Our environment speaks to us; we are all searching for our identity, and what we create is inexplicably tied to where we live.”

Written by: Tia Markland

No Rules, No Roles, No Problem

Dave Thomas gets interviewed by EM on his artistic creativity and surfer style.

When interviewing Dave Thomas, I realized that his artistic ability started early on. He was fifteen at his first attempt and then immediately embraced it. His uninhibited nature, freedom from life, and passion for art carried him through a great education and now successful career. He is frank, honest, talented, and a former California surfer.

EM: Where do you do your work?
DT: I work in my home, a 3 car garage.

EM: Do you work from life, or from photography or from imagination?
DT: If I had to answer using one of your three choices, I’d say imagination, but it’s actually a process of discovery, experimentation, trial and error, make and destroy, intuition and hard work.

EM: What moves you most in life, either to inspire you or upset you?
DT: Relating how I feel to studio practice is non-existent to me. I don’t wait for inspiration to make paintings; I work through many types of life situations, good and bad. The goal is to WORK! If I don’t work, I never find the next problem to solve...What’s the question?

EM: Where do you feel art is going?
DT: Currently, art it’s going in a direction than everyone can understand; a reflection of world conditions. But speaking for myself, I’m very focused on being aware and understanding the world around me, as I understand it. I’m sure that is limited, but it’s all I can do. I’m very interested in communicating with my peers and fellow artists, not just painters. Knowing and understanding art history is important; so we don’t reinvent the wheel.

EM: What is the role of the artist in society?
DT: No role, no rules. Brake as many rules as possible and still communicate.

EM: What is the place of your work in society?
DT: I’m a painter in all things I do, even if I’m making a three dimensional piece of work, I’m still a painter with concerns of a painter.

EM: What technique do you use?
DT: I like the paint and liquid material that eventually dries and surprises me. Mostly, I put paint and liquid material on canvas and paper.

EM: Which is more important to you, the subject of your painting or the way it is executed?
DT: Definitely the way it is executed. The act of creating is much more important to me than the finished painting; it’s about the process.

EM: Do you prefer a perfect smooth technique or a more energetic expressive technique and why?
DT: I’m an old surfer and that has influenced my work. I am very physical in the making of my paintings. I have more energy than most people I know, II hope it stays around. I have a lot of unfinished work to do.

EM: Is there anything from your childhood that you think led you to do this work?
DT: I flunked algebra twice in high school, I was fifteen and my counselor put me in an art class. The teacher was a real artist, a painter. I became alive there and converted one of my parent’s garages into a studio and painted in that garage until I was twenty. Then I submitted my portfolio to CalArts and got accepted, then moved to LA and dove into my life journey as a painter.

EM: What do you love most about what you do?
DT: Not answering to anyone, making my own rules, and exploring completely new ideas in my own way. Solving problems that I have created on the canvas, being alone in the studio, and being fearful of the mark I just put on the surface...is that enough?

EM: How do you feel when you finish a piece?
DT: Take about a day and strut around really proud of myself, then the second day it starts all over.

EM: Tell us about the first time you made your first piece?
DT: High school. I had been looking at Marc Chagall’s paintings in the library and thought I could make one as good, if not better. And thought I did at the time.

EM: Do you have any crazy or funny stories about your art experiences?
DT: Driving across the country from LA to NYC in 1973 with artist friends from CalArts. It was my first trip to that city; buying a box of cigars and smoking the whole box in one week. Attending galleries, museum openings and art parties; I thought I was pretty cool rubbing shoulders with art types I had only read about in art magazines.

Written by: Tia Markland

The Art of Enamel

The Art of Enamel -- A Renaissance in the Making

Eagle artist makes ancient art thoroughly modern

What could third-century B.C. Celts possibly have in common with local artist Delia? The Celts, who brandished brilliantly enameled copper shields and swords, favored these fused glass and metal tools over other jewel-encrusted options. And Delia, an Eagle-based, full-time working abstract artist and enamellist, has applied her creativity and ingenuity to this ancient art of fusing glass to metal and made it uniquely modern. Her work is intensely beautiful and evocative, whether in the form of wall artwork, sculpture, or large outside public art. Passionately committed to and enamored with enameling, Delia has nothing short of an enamel Renaissance in mind.

Nature-Made

With a little outdoor inspiration, any kid can be a pint-sized Picasso.

Parents know it doesn’t take much to occupy young, inquisitive minds. If you can find sticks, rocks, dirt and an assortment of buckets and bags, you open the door to a world of creative outdoor play. Moms and dads often enjoy creating craft projects with their children, but sometimes need a few ideas to get started. We’ve collaborated with some of Eagle’s most imaginative kid-art champions to brainstorm a few project ideas for those idle summer months. Read more...