This week’s featured artist: Wil Scott, Board of Directors member since 2010:
ME: I don’t remember being greatly interested in photography at an early age, and yet I still have two Brownie cameras my parents gave me as a child. As an art history grad student, I fooled around taking scenic landscapes, but I wasn’t thinking I was creating “art.” The turning point was in 2007, when people responded enthusiastically to photos I took with a new high-end Canon point-and-shoot while on vacation in Prague. I entered a photo of Prague’s historical Charles Bridge in a non-juried staff art show at the National Gallery of Art. The deputy director and others complimented me, and someone bought it. Wow! Now with more confidence, I kept on shooting. At the end of this month, I will retire from my career as an art historian and museum educator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington to concentrate full-time on my photography and my grandchildren.
MY ART: The visible world is full of complexity, contradictions, and fleeting beauty. A camera is a tool to both preserve and discover these things, sometimes in completely unexpected ways. My works are an attempt to recognize distinctive patterns of light and shadow, arrangements of forms, and emphatic color. Unintentionally or not, all my work is impacted by more than thirty years as an American art historian and my career at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. Earlier photos capture elements of architecture or are compositions with a strong architectonic structure. More recently, I’ve tended toward dramatic depictions of nature, especially clouds, sunsets, and storms. View my portfolio at www.wil-scott.com.
MFA & ME: For years, I enjoyed shows at the Circle Gallery. About four years ago, I joined and was accepted into the first member juried exhibit. With more confidence and new friends who were successful, professional artists, I was working more and more on my photography. The MFA has given me access to a wonderful venue to show my work, opportunities to talk with and learn from other artists in a growing organization with a dynamic executive director and a dedicated board. With that kind of support behind me, I’ve been juried into numerous MFA national juried exhibitions and member shows, and in the past year, I’ve been able to show my work in Switzerland, France, Los Angeles, Portland (OR), and other venues around the US.
Every week, we feature an MFA member for “Me & My Art Monday.” If you are interested in being featured, please submit a photo and three paragraphs: one each about YOU, YOUR ART, and MFA & YOU totaling approximately 350 words, to meandmyart@mdfedart.org.
