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Ada Jessamine Shumate (born on March 31, 1902 as Ada Jessamine White in Horsepasture, Virginia - died on December 16, 1990 in Greenville, North Carolina) was an American artist, historian and cartographer, winner of the "Award of Distinction" in 1955 from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. ==Work== Jessamine Shumate worked within a number of different styles and media during her career. "Her work covers a broad range of media including silk screen-printing, pastel, transparent and opaque water color, oil, collage, batik and serigraph. Some of her techniques involve oil and the use of a blowtorch. She uses her serigraphs and silk screens as part of her collage work. Mrs. Shumate also makes photographic prints of her original work."〔“Mrs. Shumate will have Art Exhibited.” 1971. Daily Southerner of Tarboro, NC. No page number or exact date is given.〕 She did traditional portraits; still life; traditional bucolic and rural scenes of Virginia and landscapes. She also completed a number of abstract art works, using cubism, orientalism and found art. However, during her time, she lived in artistic isolation. In southwestern Virginia, there were few other professional artists, and fewer people to discuss and exchange artistic ideas with. Those artists in the southwestern Virginia area during the 1940s and 1950s, were frequently very conservative in their tastes. They often concentrated only on traditional southern art paintings, such as family portraits, landscapes, or simply decorating utensils. Few other people in the region had the scope and range of Jessamine Shumate’s efforts, and she received much local criticism and disapproval for some of her modern art projects and accomplishments. She was also a founder of what is now called the Piedmont Arts Association in Martinsville, Virginia. A still controversial series of art works was done showing the Broad Street Christian Church in Martinsville, Virginia〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Broad Street Christian Church )〕 of which she was a member. Margaret Hadden said: "Her church, Broad Street Christian Church, in Martinsville, was very important to her and she taught the kindergarten class in Sunday school for many years."〔Hadden, Margaret S. 2007. My Memoirs. Page 13.〕 In this series of experiments, she did one oil painting of the outside of the church in the cubist style (See: Cubism), showing an absract view of the church from different sides simultaneously. In another two pastels, she shows the light of the stained glass windows filling the inside of the sanctuary and coming forth out from the church, and illuminating the area around the church, passing through the brick walls. Another two works were done in watercolor painting of the Philpott Dam in Henry County. These were done during the construction phase of the dam, and both paintings show the temporary cement factory that was constructed to make the cement locally, and then taken down and removed after the dam was constructed. Her paintings are the only representations from this period, since most other photographic work concentrated on the construction of the dam itself, and not in the engineering aspects of the construction site. These paintings have recently been given to the Philpott Dam. "Relatives of the late artist Ada Jessamine Shumate, who contributed two of her paintings of the construction of Philpott Dam to the dam’s visitor’s center. Shumate was a native of Henry County who painted the construction during the 1950s. Sharing the paintings with the public is a fitting tribute to her work and a good way for people to get a sense of what went into creating the dam." Another series of paintings were done when she was a student at the Woman's College in Greensboro, North Carolina, now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Some of these paintings show a cubist style of the gym and other buildings, showing images of the past and present brought together, so older buildings appear to overlap newer construction. Other paintings are pastels showing scenes of student housing and life in Greensboro, North Carolina from the late 1940s. Jessamine Shumate was also famous for some of her unusual works. One of the most interesting was a burned cookie sheet. "Mrs. Jessamine Shumate... is perhaps the only local artist to use a burned cookie sheet and a blow torch to do some of her painting."〔“ Smith, Rodney. 1967. "Cookie Sheet and Blow Torch are used in Art Work by Mrs. Jessamine Shumate.” The Henry County Journal. December 20, 1967, page 3.〕 And another writer from Roanoke said: "When it come to experimental material it is quite possible that Jessamine Shumate takes some kind of cake for painting on a cookie sheet. For me this is actually one of the most delightful items in the show. No one would guess that her bright, “Pebbly Abstract No. 3” is the result of a near kitchen disaster. Jim Yeatts, gallery owner, tells us that the artist left the cookie tin in the oven too long one day and tried desperately to get it clean. When it didn’t begin to shine properly, she decided to paint it and frame it. “Cookie Sheet”, done in “mixed media”, is a delightful addition to the show. It may also be some sort of inspiration to other kitchen artists, who prefer paint brushes to scouring pads."〔Young, Priscilla. "Art for All: Mrs. Shumate's New Experiments." Roanoke Times. 1963. No pagination or exact date given.〕 The art piece is an example of “Found art”, in that it is presented by the artist as a work of art, but the object was originally designed for a non-art function. Jessamine Shumate had taken something that was “found” and made it into another, more artistic, representation. Jessamine Shumate has shown her works in the art museums of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia; the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia; Bristol, Tennessee, the Greenville Museum of Art〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Greenville Museum of Art :: Home )〕 in Greenville, North Carolina, Tarboro, North Carolina, the art museum of Springfield, Massachusetts and others. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Jessamine Shumate」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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