Q&A: Deborah Woloschuk Finds Inspiration Through God and Nature

Here's the final Q&A in our series about artists appearing at this weekend's event.

North Canton Patch: Where are you from? Tell us a little about yourself.

Deborah Woloschuk: I was born Deborah Lynn Husted, (twin to David Lee Husted), in Canton, OH, at Aultman Hospital in 1954. I grew up in Stark County most of my life and graduated from Oakwood High School in 1972. I played the flute in the band and sang in choirs at church and in school for my love of music, but art was always my favorite class. I used to draw my teachers, while also taking notes in class.

I attended the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, FL, where I fell in love with life drawing — drawing real people from live models. While there, I learned the basics of how to achieve a true likeness/image/portrait from life. I worked at Frease and Shorr Advertising in Canton for five years, got married to Ned Kohler in 1974 and raised three sons. All three sons, John, Mark and Evan Kohler, have served in the U.S. Army. Mark, Army National Guard, was awarded the Purple Heart for surviving a car bomb while deployed to Iraq. My oldest son, John, studied Mandarin Chinese in regular Army  and my youngest son, Evan, has been deployed twice in Army Reserves to Iraq. I was divorced after 27 years of marriage and then remarried June 2009 to my wonderful and loving husband, David F. Woloschuk from Hartville. We live in Canton near .

I am currently accepting fine art commissions and art students of most ages. I also got my floral design certification at , which improved my work as a floral designer for Donzell's Garden Center in Akron. I still freelance designs in silk flowers for arrangements, swags, garlands, wreaths, centerpieces and decorated-themed Christmas trees.

North Canton Patch: How did you get involved in art?

Woloschuk: I was always doodling and sketching. My mother is an accomplished oil painter also, who inspired me the most. She took me in my early teens every summer with her to an art class where we would draw and paint all day out in the country. Then we would come together over lunch where our teacher, Kay Syler, would critique our work. I was greatly encouraged and learned a lot those carefree summers.

My favorite class all through school was art — painting scenery for school plays and musicals. My grade-school teacher, Mrs. Rowley, told me she hoped to see me come back as an art teacher someday. I never forgot her encouraging words. I have studied at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and the Canton Museum of Art, under an artist from Westlake, and most recently, private lessons with Frank Dale in Massillon. After winning Best in Show (first Place) in Massillon's All Stark County Art Show several years ago and several awards in May Shows, I feel ready and excited to teach, inspire and mentor children and adults (regarding) my love and the creativity of art.

North Canton Patch: Do you have a specific area of art that interests you the most?

Woloschuk: Specific areas of art I like most would be Classical Realism, the glowing pure colors of the old masters, painting portraits of people and pets, still life, flowers — anything in nature. I love taking the everyday, even ordinary, and rendering it into extraordinary. I love how light affects objects and even passes through them, as in glass and finding beauty in everything visual. In floral designing, I love to take leftovers and odds and ends on hand, sometimes adding something new to create, say a wreath, for any season to become a treasured tradition to hang inside or outside the home. The fun is tuning into your "fresh eyes" through art. Even while attending to my lush flower gardens landscaping our home.  

North Canton Patch: Where do you get your inspiration?

Woloschuk: I get my muse of inspiration from my spiritual faith and prayer in the Master Artist, who has called me to appreciate beauty, to know compassion and to seek truth through creativity.

North Canton Patch: When you are creating your art, do you have a certain time, setting or atmosphere that you prefer?

Woloschuk: I most prefer to create in my home in a room on the second floor with sky lights and several windows that make me feel like I'm outside, but without the bugs. I also do my pondering and thumbnail sketch ideas out in our screened-in gazebo set next to a beautiful water feature we created ourselves. I love hearing the relaxing music of the waterfalls and watching the birds bathe in the stream that runs between the small ponds. The relaxing atmosphere brings clarity to my brainstorming ideas of color harmony, subject matter and composition for future paintings and art creations.  

North Canton Patch: Why do you think local art is important to the community?

Woloschuk: Local art is important to me and to our community I feel because it supports, uplifts and encourages a warm positive spirit and attitude for living everyday life and in growing, healthy relationships that focus on seeking and finding beauty in all things, while in a sometimes negative, sagging economy, chaotic and noisy carnal world.  

North Canton Patch: What are you most excited about for this event and what will you be displaying? Will you be selling anything?

Woloschuk: I am excited to meet old and new faces and hopefully inspire others, through my own art, to create legacies of their own individual styles of creativity through art and to take in other local artists' work to inspire me. It's all good!

North Canton Patch: What will you have on display Sunday?

Woloschuk: I will be displaying original oil paintings, colored pencil, charcoal and pastel drawings in fine art. Also, I will be at my easel for some demonstrating, working on a current piece. Instead of calling it artwork, I prefer to call it "art play" — sounds more fun! Most art I create is commissioned and hangs in local and countywide homes. You may find a painting or two that will be for sale — if you can talk me into parting with them. Each artist puts a little of him or herself into each creation.

 North Canton Patch: What kind of art do you have hanging at your house?

Woloschuk: The art you will find decorating my home (walls are made to fill) is mainly my favorite old master prints collected over the years, as my taste has changed, like Maxfield Parrish, William A. Bouguereau, Alma Tadema ,Tissot and Mucha, dispersed with a few of my own framed paintings and drawings that have priceless sentimental value to us.

North Canton Patch: If you could meet one artist from the past, who would it be?

Woloschuk: Most definitely, my dream would be to meet William Adolphe Bouguereau from the past! He is my hero. I have traveled to several states and countries to see his original paintings, including the Louvre in Paris, France.  

North Canton Patch: How do you bring art into everyday life?

Woloschuk: I bring art into my everyday life through sharing my wild English gardens around our home, through floral designing custom wreaths for gifts and as commissioned work and in decorating every room of my home. You will find a painting to fit the room or even a fairy tree that stays up all year with a nice green glow!  My Christmas tree morphs artistically into a Valentine's tree in February to help bring fun and color into a dreary Ohio winter. I rotate seasonal wreaths and arrangements inside and outside my home. In my kitchen, instead of traditional curtains (ordinary) I hang garlands that transform (extraordinary) with each season, too. Right now, you will delight in fairies and fantasy trumpet-shaped flowers and much, much more there. I guess you could say my motto is, "More is better and more fun!" In the fall, I paint portraits of real or fake pumpkins. I even hang a swag of silk summer flowers on our shed/storage "barn" flanked by bird houses.  

North Canton Patch: What does art mean to you?

Woloschuk: What art means to me: To seek beauty in everything and everyone, to know genuine compassion for all and to seek truth by faith in God, the Master Creator/Artist, who has called me to also create and be created in His image. 

 (Here are two of Woloschuk's favorite quotes that inspire her.)

 "In everything you do, put God first and He will crown your efforts with success." — Proverbs 3:6

"Whatever your talent, use it in every way possible; Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke." — Brendan Francis