Plainsboro resident Doug Opalski came by his artistic talent the old-fashioned way — he inherited it.##M:[more]##
The product of a Polish musician and a Hungarian artist, Opalski says, “Whether I absorbed the talent, I’m not sure. I was lucky. However, I also had art training.”
His father, Victor, founded the Chambersburg Dairy, a farm he later turned into a milk distributor, and eventually into an ice cream store. But his real love was music. Victor played, and at 86 years old, still plays the saxophone. The younger Opalski remembers, “He worked two jobs. To relax, he would pick up his sax after work and play his heart out in the bathroom for an hour.”
His mother, Margaret, was — according to Opalski — “an extraordinary perfectionist who did everything well. She was a milliner and made clothing. She was an artist at heart, and painted murals on the basement walls. But, she and my dad were sidetracked because of the Depression. They had to feed their family, to produce food for the table, and so they put their art aside.”
Opalski is currently exhibiting his “Liquid Light” watercolor series at the Brodsky Gallery, in the Chauncey Conference Center, on the ETS Campus. The show runs through August 8. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Opalski started drawing at an early age. “You don’t think of it in terms of talent; you find satisfaction in a whole host of activities. Mine was to create these scenes as a way of entertaining myself.”
He grew up in Trenton with his brother, Phil. He and his wife, Helene, have three grown sons. He obtained a BA in political science from Rutgers, and a masters in art, city planning, and politics, also from Rutgers in 1968.
For years he practiced his craft only on the weekend. He took up painting full-time in 1993, after a decade as a regional planner, at both the county and state level, specializing in affordable housing. “It was rewarding work,” says Opalski, “on the cutting edge of social change due to the constitutional obligations. Out of those changes came units for people who couldn’t afford market housing. I was really proud to be a part of it — the people were honorable, competent, and a joy to work with.”
But after six years, he was burned out. Although he was instrumental in setting up the state’s affordable housing process, it became routine. He then went to work as a financial planner with American Express Financial Advisors from 1992 to 1996.
Opalski calls his method realism — in an unconventional perspective. “When you have a father who is a musician and a mother who is an artist, you formulate a style over time. it took me a long time to get to this stage.”
He creates his art by pouring the paint instead of brush work. But, unlike Jackson Pollack — he’s not interested in abstractionism. As each new color is poured, a protective cover, which attaches easily to the paper, hides the area of the paper to be preserved before the next pouring. Opalski credits the enormous talent of Roland Roy Craft, whose shoulders, he says, all artists who “pour,” stand on.
“You cannot obtain this atmosphere very easily through any other medium. Acrylics and oils needs to be applied by brush. Brushes leave fingerprints and footprints on the work. I want you to get in touch with the scene, relate to the scene. Experience it in at least two levels; hear the colors. The more of your senses I can engage in a painting, the more likely you are to get the feeling behind the image.”
Opalski focuses on the essential experiences that we all share. “I paint whatever appeals to me and I have pictures I’ve taken on vacation. We travel quite a bit; we scuba dive so underwater pictures appear in my art. Sometimes the image stems from a serendipitous moment. I wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly know how to combine them. I take ideas from photo albums and just observing things everyday.
“Sometimes the images come from music itself,” Opalski continues. “If you close your eyes, you begin to see colors; composers do that. They take what they’ve seen and turn it into a composition. The vibration of the music can be equated with the vibration of a visual color. A sound might appear clearly as yellow.
“This is an attempt to reverse that process by transferring a musical score into a visual experience: black and white gives you rhythm, and the arrangement of the colors — by pouring, provides the harmony.
“Whether performing or visual, says Opalski, “art should be given more attention. Funding is always an issue, and finding a patron is very difficult, unless you happen upon a craze. We live in a utilitarian society where many people regard art as an affectation. But some people like the message expressed through art. Purchasing art is an investment, a legacy, and a way to support the arts, as well as a piece of beauty.”
“I think there is a desire today for art that is literal and unconventional, just like in literature. I believe that perceptions and views that are out of the typical, invite us to reevaluate our values — both those around us and in us. If my art can do that for someone, I would be absolutely delighted. But, I won’t know if I do that until they come to the show.
— Fran Ianacone
