Janie O’Farrell of Friendswood, a longtime artist and art educator, is the Galveston Art League’s Featured Artist for March. See her work at the Art League’s gallery, 2117A Postoffice St. in Galveston.
“Driving to Santa Fe” is one of about a dozen paintings that Janie O’Farrell will exhibit and offer for sale at the Galveston Art League Gallery from Feb. 27-March 29.
Longtime art teacher and hardworking painter Janie O’Farrell is the Galveston Art League’s Featured Artist from Feb. 27-March 29. About a dozen of the Friendswood artist’s finely detailed paintings – many of them rendered on reclaimed building materials – will hang and be offered for sale in the league’s gallery, 2117A Postoffice St. in Galveston. Gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and during ArtWalk on March 7.
O’Farrell’s love of art started at an early age. As an elementary school student, she received a scholarship to Glassell Junior School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
After receiving a bachelor of fine arts degree from Baylor University in Waco, O’Farrell began teaching at Glassell Junior School. She taught many media – printmaking, sculpture, painting and drawing to 4- to 18-year-old students there for about 20 years. O’Farrell also has taught art in outreach classes offered at Houston hospitals and senior centers, and many of her murals hang in restaurants and schools in the Friendswood area.
She loves many media, but does she have a favorite? Not really, O’Farrell says: “Whatever media I’m currently working in intrigues me.” Her current passion is acrylic paintings of landscapes and objects from nature. O’Farrell’s goal as a painter is to capture the essence of a landscape or object.
She particularly enjoys painting on salvaged ceiling tiles, roof tiles and wood, which she says is a way of breathing new life into the aging objects. Some of the wood that O’Farrell uses has come from the Galveston Historical Society’s Architectural Salvage Warehouse.
“The most challenging thing to me about painting is when I paint on reclaimed wood or tin is deciding what to paint,” she says. “I have to live with the vintage object awhile until I can envision my subject matter.”
O’Farrell’s artwork is featured in private collections in Texas and Louisiana. O’Farrell is a professional member of the 115-year-old Galveston Art League. The nonprofit league offers memberships of various levels to artists and non-artists, and these tax-deductible memberships are crucial to the financial support of the organization, which is and always has been led and operated solely by volunteers; there is no paid staff. To learn more about the league and its memberships, please visit GalvestonArtLeague.com and click on “Join.” For more information, email Gallery2117@gmail.com.
