Red River Watercolor Society’s Debra Griffey sincerely hopes the third time’s a charm for Minnesota watercolor painter Andy Evansen here in Moorhead.
The nationally known artist from Hastings, Minn., is scheduled to arrive Sunday to complete judging of the four dozen works of art he’s selected for the group’s 24th annual Watermedia Exhibition, which opens Monday at the Hjemkomst Center. In addition to headlining the opening reception and awards presentation Tuesday night, he’s spending the whole week with 20 members of the 38-year-old confederation of artists in rigorous, all-day lessons.
Assuming he gets here this time.
“We’ve been trying to get Andy here for years,” Deb says. “But something always gets in the way.” It was a classic North Country blizzard the first time, one that closed all the roads in western Minnesota. They rescheduled. Then an emergency in Andy’s extended family blew up his plans. This year, she’s expecting nothing but smooth sailing.
The National Watermedia Exhibition is one of the highlights of the year for the region’s visual art community. It brings together in equal measure an appreciation of personal perceptions of beauty, distinctly different talents and a touch of the competitive spirit that inspires artists to compete for a spot in a highly competitive field. Two hundred entries were submitted online this year in the first round. Working online, they were winnowed down to the 47 that will hang in the Hjemkomst. The jurist – one of the first to hail from Minnesota – will make final decisions on the prestigious awards when he sees them in person.
Like many of the artists who compete for inclusion, most of the jurors that have selected each year’s winners hail from distant addresses. Andy is an exception – one of Minnesota’s own who’s developing an outsize international reputation. A member of RRWS since 2010, he holds “signature status,” an honor awarded to those who’ve hung paintings in three previous shows. His painting “Evening Shift” won the society’s High Water Award in 2016.
Andy began his career with his focus far from the landscapes and cityscapes he paints full-time today. He spent 25 years after graduating from the University of Minnesota as a medical illustrator. As the world of technical illustration retreated from airbrush, pen and brush toward the computer, he taught himself Photoshop and digital illustration using a tablet and stylus … yet missed the fun and spontaneity of traditional media. He took up watercolors during the 1990s, then began entering juried competitions.
He was president of the Minnesota Watercolor Society in 2005 and attracting growing attention in art circles, when the artist got his big break: His painting of sailboats on the basin in the Tuileries Garden in Paris won first place in the international contest sponsored by American Artist magazine. It graced the cover, with other paintings, more midwestern in tone, featured inside.
“I began to get invitations to teach workshops and judge exhibitions,” he recalls. “It’s amazing how long it takes to build your own brand, but it’s grown steadily through word of mouth.” His work was chosen for many of the most prominent national shows – the American Watercolor Society in New York, the Northwest Watercolor Society in Seattle, the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association’s waterworks shows.
Today Andy paints all day, every day, in his home in Vermilion, Minn., and his studio 10 miles away in Hastings … when he has time. His calendar, though, is full of travels as a juror and a workshop instructor. Last week he was teaching on Cape Cod. After Moorhead, he’ll be home for a week – then off on his fifth teaching trip to China, where he’ll share billing in Qingdao with world-acclaimed master Alvaro Castagnet.
Back home, his teaching schedule for the rest of the year ranges from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum to Seattle, Philadelphia, Maine, and Madeline Island, Wis. He’s also jurying the prestigious New England Watercolor Society exhibition. He serves as president of the Plein Air Painters of America, a contingent of artists whose passion is working outdoors amidst the light-filled landscapes they portray in paint.
Describing his approach to teaching, Andy says, “I put the ‘work’ in workshop.” Participants in the RRWS class next week can look forward to a grueling week (he says), starting with a full day of instruction on tools and materials, then followed by another concentrating on black-and-white value studies. “That’s the part that all the books and instructors advise as you begin … and hardly anyone ever takes the time to do them. We will. It’s much harder than it looks.” He’ll follow that with a day of water and reflections, another of clouds and, at the end, attention to street scenes, buildings and people.
Andy talks lyrically of capturing “light-filled moments” with paints and brush. “The single most important lesson my art has taught me,” he says, “is that we don’t paint things. We paint how light affects things.”
The Hjemkomst Center hosts the Red River Watermedia Exhibition starting Monday through Aug. 5. Admission is free, as is the opening ceremony Tuesday evening at which the winners will be announced. For information on the Red River Watercolor Society, which meets monthly from September through May, visit www.redriverws.org.
