The Many Layers of Deborah Van der Wolk
by Lucretia Voigt Contributing Writer
Deborah Van der Wolk began studying to be an artist at an early age. Not that she was aware of it. "I always drew and painted as a child. I was always creative. I took lessons from Beverly Hall when she used to teach on South Wharf. She had a little place there and I used to take drawing classes with her, but I never really did much about it. I never thought I wanted to do it as a hobby or anything. In the '80s I just started painting. A friend of mine said 'Pick up a paintbrush and see what happens.' And I loved it - and have been going like crazy every since."

Clockwise from bottom, left: Van der Wolk with her dog; "Park and Drive," "Cityscape," "Morning, Noon and Night."

Van der Wolk grew up on Nantucket, living with her family at 98 Main Street, the original home of Benjamin Coffin, Jared Coffin's brother. Her parents were adventurers, however, and Deborah reaped the benefit of her parent's exploring. When her father, a music teacher at Nantucket High School, decided to take up selling real estate, the family began their travels. "My father bought a small inn in Puerto Rico when I was in third grade," she explained. "So we spent part of the year down there for three years. I would have to go from the Nantucket school system down to the Puerto Rico school system. That was kind of difficult because everyone was bilingual, and also because I was in and out of the Nantucket school system for three years. It seemed like no matter where we were, however, we were always near the ocean. And the little villages we visited always felt really special. We always came back to Nantucket, though. Nantucket was always home."

The influence of the Caribbean can be seen in much of her work, from the colors to the hint of folk art. Just like Van der Wolk, however, her art does not fit into any category but takes a traditional definition and raises it to a new height.

"[My art] definitely borders folk art, but I think that maybe it's a little more sophisticated. It definitely has a folk art feel," she recently commented. "I've always liked folk art but never purchased it for my own home, never lived with it with my furniture. When I was growing up on Nantucket, the James Hunt Barker Gallery was on Pleasant Street, right behind our house. I worked there every summer, and Grandma Moses' work was exhibited there time and time again. I found myself liking that style of painting. I used to ask my mother to draw me pictures, and she would always do stick figures that were just really nothing, but somehow they meant a lot to me. I think that's also kind of influenced my style of simplicity and childlike."

The layers of influence that have gone into her art are mirrored in the actual layers she puts on the canvas. Van der Wolk paints in watercolors - and acrylics, and charcoal, many times all together. "I use mixed media. I can start in watercolors, and then work on the same painting with acrylic on top of that and then charcoal on top of that. I do some straight watercolor and then I do some pieces that are just acrylic. You can also layer up watercolor so it looks like acrylic." Van der Wolk does not let convention hold her back.

By layering her paint her art carries a depth that is evident on the canvas and in the spirit of the work. Her brushstrokes, rich colors and combing effects are reminiscent of Van Gogh and Hundertwasser, an Austrian painter who died in 2000. "I like Van Gogh's work, some of his little brushstrokes. Some of his work is very whimsical too and fun. I like his colors. His work is certainly not like anyone else's, and I think people copied him," she remarked when explaining the influences on her own work. "I just love Hundertwasser's work. He's been one of the biggest influences for me with painting the little houses and the trees and the color combination. His work just set me free. I said 'I can just paint from my soul, my spirit, my heart' after seeing his incredible use of color and shapes."

The freedom she garnered from Hundertwasser's work is evident in her own painting. Many of her paintings, such as "Park and Drive," give you a bird's eye view of a city scene around a perfectly circular courtyard, intersected and fragmented. Her subtle colors draw you in to the middle of the painting and to the complexities the images evoke. In "Cityscape 2," her brushstrokes give depth to the duality of the sky, and even though the sky is evocative of Van Gogh's "Starry Night," the light colors she uses directly contrast the darkness of his painting. She somehow manages to keep the childlike and innocent feel in her work.

The essence of Van der Wolk's soul comes through the paint, the colors, and the canvas. "I don't start out painting any scene - I don't have anything in mind. I don't work that way. I just start to paint, and whatever comes out of it does," she explained. "I do two styles, the abstract contemporary and the folk art houses and things like that. I don't know how it all came about, it all just came out. It just showed up on the paper. Right now I'm not doing any houses. I'm doing all abstract contemporary stuff. I just take a break from things once in a while, and it just depends where I'm at in my life at the time."

That ability to let the art speak through her is the essence that nurtures and warms those who are fortunate enough to view her art. "In 1983 my mom had died, my dad had died, and so it was kind of like this wonderful way to express myself. I really enjoyed it and I've been painting ever since. This project of painting has been very nurturing. When your parents are not there to do that for you, you have to find a way to do that for yourself. The art filled in a big gap, not completely though. I think that when I need some advice that I can't get through friends that I turn to my painting and somehow I get answers through that. It just brings a lot of happiness to me on a personal level. I paint from my heart, I definitely do."

Just like the heart is a many layered thing, so too is Van der Wolk's work. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery said, "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye." Through her art Van der Wolk reveals to us that secret that once

was invisible. I