Willard Reader
Portsmouth, OH
Education
Attended Carnegie–Mellon University
Solo Exhibitions
1981 City People, Southern Ohio Museum & Cultural Center
1993 Structures, Southern Ohio Museum & Cultural Center
1993 Structures II-VII, Southern Ohio Museum & Cultural Center
Group Exhibitions
2000–2013 Southern Ohio Museum & Cultural Center
Selected Collections
Southern Ohio Museum & Cultural Center
Artist Statement
Paint on an Ostrich egg—a first for me! What to do? Landscape? – No. Abstract? No. Should be my usual Realism. Maybe treat the Egg as an Egg . . . Hmm.
I have an image flash through my mind from Jurassic Park. Tiny T-Rex dinosaurs popping out of eggs. Bizarre! Maybe a person peering through a crack in the Egg would work.
Wait! What if that person was me? A selfie in an egg. Later, I thought of the title – “The Artist in His Shell”. Fits me all right.
My usual opaque medium acrylic works perfectly on egg shell.
I was afraid to touch the delicate shell with anything but a brush so I had to paint a grid on the surface to transfer an accurate drawing of my face. I never removed the Egg from the box where it was cushioned by bubble wrap. I taped a ruler across the opening to rest my hand on. A tricky technical process.
This project was certainly a change from my usual small-town landscape work.
May all the Eggs survive intact!