Oil Painting Exhibit Opens at UUF Gallery

“Peaches and Blue Bowl” by Archelle “Buttons” Wolst.

Door County artist Archelle “Buttons” Wolst will kick off her show “The Playfulness of Color and Shape” at the Unitarian Universalist Gallery on November 8 from noon – 2 pm.

Wolst has a varied art background, but her attention shifted a few years ago to oil painting. Wolst studied under familiar area artists, such as Bonnie Paruch, Craig Blietz, Bonnita Budysz and Aaron Holland, and her show at the UU Gallery will be exclusively in oil.

The exhibit, “The Playfulness of Color and Shape,” will capture the full palette of color, ranging from bright and happy to subdued and contemplative. With subjects varying from natural landscapes to floral still life and figures, Wolst’s style is both impressionistic and modernist. She enjoys taking shapes and simplifying them to capture a mood, relating that she uses “brush work deliberately and expressively.”

Wolst’s move to Door County began with 12 years of owning and operating the Snowstar Ltd., fine stationary stores in Sturgeon Bay and Fish Creek. Prior to that, she earned her Masters of Fine Arts Degree from Carnegie-Mellon University of Pennsylvania where she also taught. Upon moving to Wisconsin, Wolst created a poster exhibition of U.S. museums that toured nationally. Her focus later changed to developing children’s’ coloring, paper-doll and activity books under the Golden Books line.

Wolst now lives in contentment with her husband and two dogs in the woods. Her oil painting exhibit will be on display for the month of November.

The UU Gallery is open Sundays, 11 am – 12:30 pm and Mondays 1 – 3 pm at 10341 Highway 42, Ephraim. For more information, visit http://www.uufdc.org, or for information about displaying artwork call 920.839.2606.