by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
“One day I may become road kill.”
That’s how local artist Elaine Emery Bedell describes the first step in her process to create a new work of art.
Bedell said she carries a digital camera wherever she goes and when she spots a scene she’d like to paint, it’s not uncommon for her to pull the car over, jump out and run across the street to capture the image and take it back to the easel in her studio.
If her name sounds familiar, there are a couple of reasons. She is the fifth generation of Emerys who have lived in Jacksonville, the late Chester Bedell was her father-in-law and her daughter, Kate Bedell, is a prosecutor in the State Attorney’s Office.
Bedell said she has been drawn to art for as long as she can remember.
“My first-grade teacher even told my mother she knew I was going to be an artist because I spent a lot of time sketching during class.”
Her teacher was right. Bedell said she began taking private art lessons when she was 9 years old, then studied the subject at Paxon High School before enrolling for more classes at Jacksonville University prior to studying for a year at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota.
Several of her acrylic paintings will be on exhibit until Aug. 1 at the Art Center Cooperative, Inc. on Adams Street, including some of her interpretations of North Florida wetlands as well as her cats and flowers series.
She particularly enjoys exploring some of the more unspoiled locations in the area and has taken her camera on expeditions everywhere from Talbot Island to Roosevelt Preserve and Fort Caroline.
“There is so much beauty around us. We’re rich in that environment. My aim is to help people see it for themselves. It’s a passion and I have to do it,” said Bedell.
She works in acrylics and watercolor because those media fit her painting style and pace.
“I work too fast to work in oils. Acrylic dries very quickly, so I can make changes or paint over something I don’t like sooner than with oils.
“I’ll work on a painting for an hour or two then put it down for a while and just live with it until I know it’s done. I’ll work on a piece until I get it out of my system then move on to the next,” said Bedell.
While most of her life she has created her art on flat surfaces, Bedell said she enjoyed painting a cat for the Otis Smith Foundation “Big Cats for Kids” that was sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce.
“It took me five weeks to complete. It was a real challenge to paint a three-dimensional object,” she said. “It may be a while before I do something like that again.”
The Art Center Cooperative is located at 31 W. Adams St. between Main and Laura streets. It is staffed solely by volunteers and is usually open during the afternoons Tuesday-Saturday. For information, visit www.blogfromthecenter.blogspot.com or to make an appointment to see Bedell’s paintings and meet the artist, call 614-5986.