Jane Lawton Baldridge

Search terms: mixed media, painting, abstract, digital art, watercolour, acrylic, charcoal, collage

About the Artist

"I started out with a traditional education and mediums, beginning with black and white work and not progressing to colour until I had conquered cross hatching (without smearing). I progressed to water colour, oils and acrylic which were very popular with buyers for fifteen years. I started getting edgy and wanted to push past traditional work and I found it in computers. I have been using the computer as an art medium since 1991. The process of "playing" provides an infinite number of paths to explore with ever-changing results. To rein this situation in a bit I started to focus on subjects of significant historical relevance to me. The disappearing corner grocery stores that used to be the cornerstones of many neighbourhoods were my first focus."

"I then progressed on to maritime interests, the plight of the local watermen, whose families' existence for generations has depended on fishing, people who are having to leave such an honourable profession because of greed, pollution and tourism."

"These subjects required more than just images, the stories behind my subjects need to be shared. My love of the process, of these creations, is only surpassed by my interest and devotion to the memory of my subjects."

"My "Stories" began being created on the computer with an assemblage of collected materials including family relics, love letters, dead roses and more. They are moving stories about people and things worth remembering. Sometimes I make up the stories, stories about people and things I don't know but can imagine."

"After a three day international art colony experience at Bald Head Island, 2002, where I painted three "analogue" paintings, with stories, I realized the next path was to merge painting and computer in a more organic form than I could achieve from just the computer. These new pieces represent what I have been working toward for 30 years. Unlike my previous work which would be similar in size, material and subject matter, I have taken a much broader approach to this work with my heart, my thought patterns and my palette."
Jane Lawton Baldridge

"The stories Jane Lawton Baldridge tells are the stories of lives of the past - distant and recent. Some of them are her deeply personal stories; others recall lives of people around her. Yet they all seem to convey a tale in the same manner. Old photographs, newspaper clippings, found objects and hand-written letters document life as the artist has seen and experienced it. And using her artist's eye and her computer, she has combined these documents and images to create digital collages, so to speak."
Wilmington Star News