Our Art: Ellie Schaul’s “Felicia, Lamb’s Ear, Molson and CT”
“Felicia, Lamb’s Ear, Molson and CT,” about 1987, by Ellie Schaul
Watercolor on paper with cotton lace, painted frame, 64 1/2 inches by 44 inches including frame. Gift of Mark Schaul, the artist’s husband, to the University of Charleston’s Erma Byrd Gallery of West Virginia Women Artists
Artist Ellie Schaul made this large watercolor painting in the late 1980s when she and her husband, Mark, had two golden retrievers, Molson and CT.
The title, Schaul explains, comes from its elements: “Felicia” is for Felicia daisies, whose blooms are on the frame and in the painting; lamb’s ear leaves circle the frame; CT, the golden who always wanted full attention, is in the foreground. Molson, the dog who always wanted to do his own thing, lounges in the baby pool.
It is springtime, when Schaul is growing radishes for the first time and when her garden is starting to come to life. “The lace around the painting, as well as the fabric, comes from somewhere way in the back of my mind, remembering my great-grandmother, a dressmaker in Boston,” Schaul said.
In addition to painting, Schaul is gallery director at The Art Store, where she shares a desk with friend and owner Sherry Lovett. “She can only paint from a happy place,” Lovett said. “So when she wants to paint, she gets happy. Every painting I have of hers — and I have six — is joyful, even if it’s a somber subject.”
Schaul has always described herself as an abstract realist. “They’re realistic in that you can find the boats and the houses and whatever else you want,” Lovett said. “There’s always a lot going on in a Chagall sort of way. That wasn’t always true, but it’s been true for many years.”
When Janet Welch, wife of University of Charleston President Ed Welch, was seeking donations for the college’s Erma Byrd Gallery of West Virginia Women Artists, which opened in 2004, Schaul’s husband gave this painting.
Collectors John and Fonda Elliot have a similar painting of Molson and CT done around the same time.
– By Bob Schwarz
‘Our Art’ is an occasional feature the arts section of the Sunday Gazette-Mail profiling artworks in public collections in the area. This is reprinted from the Aug. 5, 2007 ‘Life & Style’ section
