THE GREAT GIVEAWAY

Local Artist Donates Art to Support TorC Food Project and Tiger Art

Art Burger, The Center Gallery Fine Art

In celebration of her 81st birthday, Carolyn Eastman Cazares is donating the profits from this sale of her art to her two favorite causes: The Sierra County Student Art Show (aka Tiger Art) and People Growing Together. Her exhibit is featured at The Center Gallery Fine Art (@Foch&Main).

When Carolyn was four years old, she drew a tree that did not look like a lollipop and was proclaimed an artist by her nursery school teacher. Her parents supported her art buying $1.00 Walter Foster “How to” books which she preferred to classes. At seven, she received her 1st set of oil paints. At 14, she took life drawing classes taught by renowned artist Warren Hunter. She says that drawing the human figure still fascinates her.

Her work broadened over the years and in her 20s through 40s, she explored fashion design and sculptures, collage, acrylics, pastels, air brush, and watercolors. In the 60’s, she painted with Alberto Mijangos, a member of San Antonio’s “angry young artists” and was the Mexican-American Institute of the Arts director at the time. She studied Sumi Painting (Chinese brush & ink) in Virginia with Sumi Master, I-Hsiung Ju. Carolyn says that Sumi came to her quite naturally and has influenced almost everything she’s done since. Her Sumi Master calls Sumi painting a performing art, “The brush dances and the ink sings.”

She has produced thousands of pieces, from large paintings to calligraphy of Hebrew letters, as well as ink drawings as small as a postage stamp. She said “no piece of paper was safe from her.” Along the way, she added a new expression of her art through original handcrafted amber-centric and copper jewelry.

Carolyn summarizes her body of work as the 4 Fs: Faces, Figures, Flowers, and Fruit. She is including “small treasures” in this show gleaned from her years of accumulated sketchbooks, many which had never been shown.

Since settling in TorC, her work has been exhibited at the Angel Remnants, Galactic Digs, Grapes and Zia galleries. For the past year, she has been a featured artist at The Center Gallery Fine Art and she quickly became a gallery favorite.

Before Covid, Carolyn spent time playing her autoharp for clients of the Ambercare Hospice program. Rather than receive the vaccines, Carolyn opted for isolation at home and devoted herself to further studies in “ancient wisdom, comparative religion, conspiracy theories, historical fiction, and the relationships between humans and extraterrestrials.” With no TV or radio, she found “a book a day keeps reality away” She reads her news from The Sentinel, Smithsonian, and AARP. A friend had let her know when Queen Elizabeth had died.

When asked what she would do if she could change things in our country for the better, she said “teach children cursive writing again and do away with daylight savings time.”

Carolyn calls this stage of her life the fat lady’s swan song: if I live, I live and if I die, I live.

SIDEBAR

Tiger Art is the popular name of the Sierra County Student Art Show. The show allows 6th through 12thgrade students, selected by a panel of judges, to sell their art at the show and compete for scholarships and prizes. The 2nd Annual Student Art Show will be held at the TorC Civic Center April 21-22, 2023.

The non-profit “People Growing Together” organizes community assets to maintain Sierra County food security through building an underground sustainable greenhouse for year-round production. Watch for the Program.