By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Jenny Mehlenbeck's affinity for fish, surf, diving and a long-held desire to live under the sea shows up in her first solo art exhibit, "Seventy Percent Water," opening Friday, Nov. 17, at Dogwood Fine Arts Festival headquarters in the Huntington Bank.
A reception will take place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., with a gallery talk by the artist at 5:45 p.m.
Her drawings and paintings in oils, acrylics and colored pencils will remain on exhibit until March 1, 2007.
Her artwork reflects her personal interests, whether it's her fascination with water or pieces inspired by science fiction, fantasy, astronomy, animals and flowers.
"I was sitting there trying to pull together a theme and I realized an awful lot of it has water in it," she said Wednesday. "Then it dawned on me: 70 percent of the earth is covered with water and about 70 percent of my artwork at least has water – even the one of Jupiter has an ocean."
The first painting of a diver's-eye view of a coral reef teeming with her fish fantasies was completed in 1997 while she was still a student at Southwestern Michigan College, where she now teaches part-time.
"I don't want to sell the one I did as a student," so she painted a companion to it.
Her artistic mentor, David Baker, with his summer series of 24 watercolors chronicling Dowagiac Creek crossings, "inspired" her to depict koi in her pond from a variety of vantage points.
Texture is another pet element in her work, like an abstract of a Yellowstone National Park hot spring that reminds others of an eyeball, a volcano or a sunflower.
"I like to hear the comments," Mehlenbeck said.
"I love acrylics," she said. "Acrylics dry fast, so you can do all these textural things." She scratches the "brick" surrounding her pond. "You can't do fun stuff with oil unless you have 20 years to wait for it to dry."
Having her own show "is so cool. It's a first," Mehlenbeck said. "I've had my stuff hang in the Rose Gallery (when she was president of Dowagiac Art Guild), but just one of many, so this is neat."
Dogwood Executive Director Bobbie Jo Hartline said she believes Mehlenbeck "is the first artist we've been able to afford her first show to. That's special for us."
The opening-weekend gallery talk also coincides with Greater Dowagiac Chamber of Commerce's Open House Weekend for Christmas.
"Normally, we're not open on the weekends," Hartline said, "but for this show we will be."
Mehlenbeck is a native of Chicago. The former Niles resident settled in southwest Michigan in 1991.
"When I was a kid," she said, "I had the idea that when I grow up, I'm going to build an underwater house with thermal vents, running turbines and a pet dolphin."
In fact, look closely and see her dream abode leagues under the sea on the canvas shaped like the windows on the dwelling "that's right out of my childhood. You're supposed to be like looking out the window. They've since done experiments and that would be impossible. You can't live under water for any length of time that deep."
She also traces her texture fascination to a Baker class.
"The kids were talking about priming a canvas and getting it smooth," she recalls. "I said, 'Why? Let's go the other way.' I took a palette knife to it. I did a couple of horrible paintings just to paint something on this textured canvas. I have pile of paintings that go in a 'Learn from this, but God, don't do that again' " heap.
"I'm amazed by how the koi 'pop,' " praised Cyndy Wardlaw of the Dogwood Visual Arts Committee. "They almost look like they're backlit."
"The first thing I did in my backyard when I had a yard to garden was to put in a pond," Mehlenbeck said. "The koi barely survive, but the frogs have found me and come from miles around.
"I've got to have water around me. I'm an avid fish person. My first job was at a really big pet shop in Chicago, and I became the fish department manager. I learned everything there is to know about tropical fish, and I kind of miss that. I came close to buying a store in Chicago – and I'd probably still be there if I did, so I'm really glad it didn't work out. I've got a beautiful kid (Charlie) and went back to school and learned how to do this. It led to something good."
She and her husband Jim share their home in Keeler with Charlie, three dogs and a "chatty" macaw, which calls her son's name, barks like a dog and says, "hello" when the phone rings.
Her bird's strong beak shells Brazil nuts "like they're bananas. He also peels peas and grapes."
She hosts a Web site (http://ArtmakersWorlds.com) that is not only an electronic portfolio, but also an avenue of resources for other artists.
She graduated from SMC with two associate degrees. She teaches computer graphics.
The special gallery hours that coincide with Dowagiac's Old-Fashioned Christmas Celebration are: Saturday, Nov. 18, from noon to 3:30 p.m.; and Sunday, Nov. 19, from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Regular gallery hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Dogwood Festival at (269) 782-1115 or e-mail mail@dogwoodfinearts.org.