A new art exhibit will be shown at the Sedalia Municipal Building beginning today featuring the work of Sedalia Visual Art Association members Jack Dieckman and Linda Rhoads.
SVAA President Linda Hoover was on hand Thursday morning to help hang Dieckman’s work. She noted that both Dieckman and Rhoads are artists-in-residence at their churches, Dieckman at Antioch Fellowship and Rhoads at Liberty Life Center. Hoover said because of other obligations Dieckman was unable to hang his work Thursday, so she was helping him out.
Hoover added that she thought it was notable that local churches were highlighting art and artists in their congregations.
“Linda does a lot of murals at the church and paintings on the walls,” she said. “She’s done pictures during service, and Jack’s done the same thing. They just set up an easel and paint during the service as the Lord leads them. They are wonderful paintings. Jack’s and Linda’s (work) are both hanging on the walls (at the churches).”
Dieckman, 80, is a new member of SVAA and this is his second public show.
“The first time he showed outside of the church, that I know of, was at the Daum (Museum of Contemporary Art) at our show,” Hoover added. “Although, he’s got a degree in art and he made a wonderful living as a designer for a big company in Kansas City.”
His painting, “Scott Joplin,” on exhibit at the Municipal Building, hung in the SVAA members’ show in the Goddard Gallery for the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art this past summer. His work usually revolves around spiritual matters, such as his large painting “Nothing Left” depicting a disheveled man on the sidewalk with an empty alcohol bottle. Angel wings hang over the man as if protecting him from self-destruction.
Other pieces in the show, “Peter,” “God’s Vessel” and “Mary of Bethany,” speak of Biblical messages.
“He made a living in the arts and is a painter at the church, but having done art for all this time, this is new to him, to be showing in public,” Hoover said.
Rhoads has been a member of SVAA for 15 years. She has painted murals in the basement of her church and at The Shepard’s Place in downtown Sedalia.
Her work hanging at the Municipal Building are all watercolor and involve nostalgia.
“What I paint is usually stuff that kind of evokes a memory in a person,” Rhoads said. “It’s kind of nostalgia and I think probably my greatest joy about painting is when I hear somebody say ‘oh my grandmother had a sewing machine just like that.’”
One of her paintings for the show is of an antique Singer sewing machine. Most of the subject matter, whether it’s a row of hanging aprons or canning jars, are items she finds at her own home or at friends’ homes.
Rhoads also has an affinity for images from the Missouri State Fair and for old steam engine trains. Her favorite piece is of an vintage 762 steam engine that she painted from a static display at a park.
“I’ve always wanted to stand in front of a train, not moving, and just paint an old train,” she said smiling. “I found that one in Kansas. I had a train period where I painted a lot of trains and sold trains. People like those. “
Watercolor is her favorite medium because of the transparency of the paint.
“I like the movement of it,” she said. “I just like that delicate transparency.”
She’s been working on new pieces such as “Sole Man,” which was in the Missouri State Fair this year. The painting features well-known Sedalia cobbler Allen Cusick of Cusick’s Shoe Repair. Rhoads has entered the piece into the Kansas Watercolor Society show. If it’s not accepted it will be shown in the SVAA members’ show Oct. 21 at the grand opening of the Liberty Center Association for the Arts.
“I’ve just started working on some little landscapes, I’ve never done that before,” she added.
The SVAA Art Exhibit featuring the work of Jack Dieckman and Linda Rhoads will be shown during business hours 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday until the end of November at the Municipal Building. 200 S. Osage Ave.
