The Fishers Arts Council will celebrate the Art of James Anderson: Vacations and Abstracts for its August exhibit in The Art Gallery at Fishers City Hall. The exhibit opens today and runs through Aug. 29. A free, public reception for Anderson will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 7 at The Art Gallery at City Hall.
Anderson says he has always enjoyed capturing photos and creating art from his youth. He received a prestigious L. S. Ayres Gold Key for one of his watercolor cityscape works in high school.
“I never understood what was so special about that one watercolor until nearly 50 years later when I saw a Matisse exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art,” he said. “That one work I created was very Matisse-like.”
During a physical for college, Anderson discovered that he was red-green-brown shade colorblind.
“It is not that I don’t see those colors, but I have trouble distinguishing between them in certain lighting situations,” he said. “I always wondered why it was difficult for me to blend colors to achieve a desired color when painting with acrylics. Therefore, my wife has become my color advisor.”
Photo provided
James set aside his artistic talents to follow a career as a programmer analyst/network engineer/business analyst/systems test engineer/systems trainer/systems support engineer in Information Technology. Then, “shortly before retirement, God opened my eyes again to those dormant artistic talents as He showed me what I missed during my IT career. He brought artist friends back into my life who urged me to display the scenes I captured for others to view as well.”
Buffalo Creek flows beside his home.
“In the spring of 2013, God reminded me that the middle portion of the bank was overgrown,” he said. “I agreed and began ‘trimming’ the overgrowth.”
After four and a half hours of trimming, James saw an amazing view into the middle of the creek with scenes he had missed for 34 years.
“While He has taken me to cityscapes, landscapes, quiet nature scenes, flowers, people, and animals everywhere, my favorite creation of His are the natural abstracts I find in Buffalo Creek,” he said.
Over the years, Anderson has varied his cameras, but always uses the same lens makers: Sony and Zeiss. He feels they provide the finest optics. Currently, his camera is a Sony a7R IV. He says its wide variety of capabilities fit his needs well from macro to zoomed telephoto. However, he says, it is the Sony FE70300G/OSS optics that put the icing on each shot.
“Now I use all the gifts God gave me from the creativeness of high school art, to the logic of IT, combined with the eyes of age and memories to capture scenes that I hope others enjoy as much as I enjoy them,” he said. “He has given me a portfolio of over 4,200 photos.”
Anderson’s artwork will also be accessible on the Fishers Arts Council website as part of the virtual gallery.
Email info@fishersartscouncil.org with questions or if you’d like more information.