Jeanne Pellegrino is an artist who has been operating a studio out of her Orange Park home since 1982. She recently started a new business venture, Christian Contemporary Art.
HAVE LONG HAVE YOU BEEN AN ARTIST?
“From the second grade I was doing art. At the age of six I was chosen by my grade school to study at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. They choose one child from each school to receive instruction.”
WHY MAKE IT A PROFESSION?
“Art is my lifestyle. It’s my life. It’s the air I breathe and all of my thoughts. Everything about me has to do with creativity, color and expression. I can’t even extrapolate it from my being. It’s so totally consuming that when I’m painting, the rest of the world is blocked out. I’m so totally engrossed that I don’t eat or drink; the other parts of my body shut down. It totally envelopes my being.”
WHAT MAKES A GREAT ARTIST?
“I really think you’re born with a sensitivity to appreciate color, shape, line and value [shading]. With instruction, you can bring out what is there. I believe we’re more sensitive to those elements than most people. You can’t teach that. I think we live on a different plane, that we see things differently. I teach students how to respond to nature. Once I teach people to see, whether they ever paint or draw again, it never leaves you.”
WHAT MEDIUM DO YOU PREFER?
“Acrylic. There’s nothing you can do with oil that you can’t do with acrylic that’s not safer, less expensive and offers more intense color. Living in Florida, we have humidity and a lot of change of color when dealing with oil that can crack. Acrylics expand and contract.”
WHAT SUBJECTS DO YOU PAINT?
“I paint what I feel or a response to what I see. There are many things that make you want to paint. I can’t say it’s a subject but my response to a stimulus. What I’m painting depends on the influences around me and on me. A lot of people don’t think you can paint unless it looks real. I do more impressionistic work influenced by Monet. Color is my favorite element and I do portraits, too. I love to do children’s portraits in pastels. The medium depends on the subject. We [as artists] are almost like a raw nerve. We take in all these things around us — the physical, spiritual, emotional. Art is the way we respond.”
WHY PAINT ABSTRACT WORKS?
“It’s intellectually challenging because I’m working with principles of organization. It has to be compositionally correct. When you do abstract expressionism, every line, color and stroke has to be just right. It looks very easy. The kind of painting I do is different from realism, and I think harder, because some is left to chance. It takes a lot of focus and expertise to get it exactly the way you want it to be.”
IS THERE AN UNDERLYING MESSAGE?
“Now there is. It’s a spiritual message. It’s a thread woven throughout my work. All my years of work have culminated into what I’m doing now.”
WHO REPRESENTS YOUR WORK?
“Some of us prefer not to be under contract with a gallery because you’re not allowed to exhibit within 100 miles [of that gallery]. This way allows me freedom but I have to work hard.”
EXHIBITIONS AND COLLECTIONS
The Chamber of Commerce, the mayor’s office art collection, Preston Haskell, Bank of America and by U.S. Rep. Cliff Sterns all have works by Pellegrino. Her pieces have been displayed at the University of North Florida, the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, the now-defunct Jacksonville Art Museum, JU’s Fine Arts Gallery and throughout Florida. Her work has also been showcased at the Akron Art Institute in Ohio, Kettler Galleries in New York City and in the U.S. State Department through the Arts in the Embassies Program.
HOMETOWN
Toledo.
PERSONAL
Pellegrino has two daughters, Lisa and Laurie. On the odd occasion when she’s not behind an easel, Pellegrino is playing the piano or swimming. Riding the waves at Crescent Beach is a particular favorite. She also enjoys watching the television show “Frasier” or thumbing through the Bible.
WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO JACKSONVILLE?
“I’ve been here since 1974 when I came to teach at Jacksonville University. My husband’s company transferred him here and I got a job teaching painting and design at JU after I got here.”
EDUCATION
Pellegrino holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Bowling Green University in Ohio. She also has a master’s degree in fine arts from Florida State University. “In studio art, a Ph.D is not offered. I studied under Trevor Bell from England. He’s had shows all over the world. He taught only selected graduate students from FSU. Bell was most influential on my art because we both grew up during the abstract expressionism of the 1950s. It was the first time America was important in the arts. He would never let me come to his studio because he didn’t want me to solve my problems with my work by looking at his.”
WHERE ART AND BUSINESS COLLIDE
“There is a lot of artwork downtown in corporate offices. Many of them are interested in art. Some galleries I used to be affiliated with, like Contemporanium, would have luncheons for architects and keep them abreast of the art world. That’s how I got my work downtown. Sometimes they [businesspeople] get so busy they don’t have time to go to art openings.”
WHERE IS JACKSONVILLE HEADED CULTURALLY?
“Generally, I think Jacksonville is becoming more aware of good art in the community. More and more we’re getting aware of the necessity of art in our lives. [Author Ernest] Hemingway said that our lives have to have the arts to be complete. If kids don’t have creativity in their lives, they become sterile.”
— by Monica Chamness