Courtesy Photo
Bold colors, Bolder Coffee go together
“In school years ago, I was the gal who got the ‘C’ in art — I couldn’t draw literally a stick person. You end up feeling like you’re just not a creative person. It was terrible.”
Despite a disheartening beginning, Marie Haley can now count herself among Arkansas creatives with new exhibitions of her work hanging in two local establishments: The Crumpet Tea Room in Bentonville and the new Bolder Coffee in Rogers. It was around the time of her 45th birthday she was inspired to revisit her dream when she fell in love with a piece her friend owned.
“[My friend] was like, ‘You know, you could make that.’ And I don’t know, it just planted a seed with me, and I thought maybe I should play around with it,” Haley recalls.
It was alcohol ink that caught her eye — a medium that uses highly pigmented colors to create marbled effects.
“I’m so fascinated by the fluidity of everything and just how colors meld together, and that’s total alcohol inks, right?” Haley muses. But it was only a short time before she found her way to fluid art. “I was totally enamored and addicted to it.”
As the name suggests, fluid art employs a liquid paint that flows easily with gravitational or manipulated force. Using additives like isopropyl alcohol or silicone oil in some or even all the colors adds texture to the works and ensures no two pieces are ever the same. When the textures are combined with the varying movement techniques — or even no movement; Haley sometimes prefers to let colors pool — it can be easy to imbue a painting with the artist’s fervor, joy or even feelings of contemplation.
“The thing that is so amazing is you just never can predict,” Haley says. “You bring the preparation to the art — you choose the paint, you manipulate the viscosity of the paint, you can add additives — but then it’s just so unpredictable what can come out of this. You just put it all together and put it out there and in many ways, the piece creates itself. That’s what’s so fascinating.”
— JOCELYN MURPHY
JMURPHY@NWADG.COM
FAQ
“Infusion”
By Marie Haley
WHEN — On display through July 30; artist reception with Haley 6-8 p.m. Thursday, July 13
WHERE — Bolder Coffee, Green Acres Road in Rogers
COST — Free to view; pieces available for purchase
INFO — facebook.com/drinkbolder
