Artist Shirley Woodson: Life captured in bold strokes

Artist Shirley Woodson described how she works: “I listen to blues, I listen to jazz.”

“What are you listening to inspires painting?” asked correspondent Rita Braver.

“Oh, definitely, definitely. A deeper color, a brighter color. This translation, this interpretation is part of what’s going on.”

There is one lot it goes to Woodson’s paintings: bold strokes and vivid colors are the hallmarks of his style.

Braver said, “When I saw your work, I thought it was a wild woman. over there. And then I met this lovely teacher. What is happening?”

“Well, I do multiple tasks,” he laughed.

And now, the work of this 85-year-old multitasking person is being celebrated in his first exhibition of a woman at the museum in his hometown, the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The exhibition, made up of paintings that Woodson made over three decades, is called “Shield of the Nile Reflections,” which she says highlights the importance of the river to civilization.

Describing his 1984 work “Shield of the Nile No. 2,” Woodson said, “I wanted to place these figures in an environment of healing, of restoration, of pleasure, all the things that water represents.”

The paintings show some of Woodson’s recurring themes: water, fish, shells, horses, and humans, sometimes painted without facial features. “I put the viewer to work,” he said, “to keep them imagining, just to say, ‘Well, why didn’t you put a face in there?’

Her work “September Wave” includes a small self-portrait of Woodson with her late husband, Edsel Reid, an art collector and curator. The two met after seeing one of his works.

Braver asked, “So I wanted to meet you?”

“Oh, yes, oh, yes. And he bought a painting!”

“The road to a woman’s heart?”

“Absolutely, this woman’s heart!” Woodson laughed.

The couple had two children. Woodson, who studied art at Wayne State University and the Chicago School of the Art Institute, spent 26 years teaching art to both high school and college students.

Braver asked, “Your work was being sold. Your work was being acquired by some museums. Why did you keep teaching while you were still seriously painting?”

“Teaching and working as an artist for me was like a double-edged sword; one kind of feeding the other,” he replied. “I loved watching people grow. And I was also learning from the process. I painted at night, I painted in almost every room in the house.”

In fact, he said, his paintings try to replicate the way we all juggle a lot of things in our minds: “You’re thinking about what happened this morning, you know, you have to pick up the kids, or you remember. so all these things are happening. “

Woodson has won numerous local and national awards, but she believes recognition has slowly come to her as well as other women artists of color.

“Do you think it’s been discrimination, in a way?” Braver asked.

“Of couse.”

“On the one hand, it’s so great to have a solo exhibit at what is perhaps Detroit’s most prestigious art gallery. On the other hand, what took them so long?”

“Well, they’re not the only ones,” Woodson laughed. “It’s about surviving. It’s about keeping the goals you have at stake, and moving forward, moving forward.”

For more information:

• “Shirley Woodson: Shield of the Nile Reflections,” at the Detroit Institute of the Arts (through June 12)

Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: George Pozderec.