Unique medium challenges artist - Jul. 22, 2010
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Kathy Bockus/Courier
St. Stephen artist Leah Phryce-Jones puts some finishing touches on a chocolate painting that will be featured during The Chocolate Museum’s Taste of Chocolate Tours during Chocolate Fest next month. She paints the miniature landscapes with warm dark and milk chcocolate on a base of white chocolate. The artwork will be offered for sale at The Chocolatier. The artist will create more work at The Olde Bank on Milltown Boulevard during the Taste of Chocolate tours. Money from the sale of the art will go to a children’s charity.
By KATHY BOCKUS
kathy@stcroixcourier.ca
ST. STEPHEN – Is it art or is it eye candy?
The miniature Maritime landscapes created by local artist, Leah Phryce-Jones are a combination of both.
The white-, dark- and milk-chocolate works of art look good enough to eat, but since they are created on canvas and sprayed with multiple coats of varnish, they wouldn’t be very palatable, note Dianne Lombard, director of The Chocolate Museum, who approached Phryce-Jones with an idea that would challenge her artistic talent.
Edible or not, the work is realistic. The chickadee on a branch looks ready to burst into song. One can almost hear the clothes flapping on a clothesline strung from a small house. In one, a hawk casts a piercing eye at all who dare to look. In another, fiddlehead ferns curl delicately among grasses while gulls soar overheard. A lighthouse stands guard on a coastline amid some storm clouds gathering.
Lombard said the idea of painting with chocolate came to her at 3 o’clock one morning. Always trying to think of something different for the Taste of Chocolate tour during Chocolate Fest, she thought “Why not paint with chocolate?”
She laughed when she recalled approaching Phryce-Jones with the idea. “She thought I was crazy at first.”
“I just sort of looked at her and she was serious and I thought, ‘well, I’ll have a go’, ” said Phryce-Jones.
She suggested the museum purchase some canvasses, and coat them in white chocolate so the dark and milk chocolate would stick.
Armed with paint brushes from the Dollar Store supplied by Lombard, Phryce-Jones began.
“I just go into the hand dipping area. They give me a bowl of milk and dark chocolate and I just sit and paint.”
She was overheard to comment to an appreciative museum patron that the finished works look a lot like old sepia photos.
Phryce-Jones, who has only been painting for four years, said she has no preconceived idea of what she will paint before she starts, except that the finished works will be scenes from the Maritimes.
“I just love it here, the lupins, chickadees, washing on the line, lighthouses. What’s not to paint?”
She describes the process of painting with chocolate like painting with nail polish.
“It is difficult and dries quickly. I have to keep it warm, and I have to keep washing the brushes because they clog.”
She said she feels a bit like television personality and Australian artist Rolf Harris, known for his quick and flamboyant style of painting.
“Slosh, slosh and there it’s done. I have to be quick. It’s a challenge. I don’t know what I’m going to paint or don’t know how it will turn out. It dries quickly and you can’t pick it off. You can’t cheat once it’s on there.”
Phryce-Jones usually paints with water colours or acrylics.
“Acrylic is much easier. If you make a mistake, you can just paint over it. Watercolour is very challenging. I’m concentrating on watercolour because it’s a challenge.”
Before retirement, the artist had her own public relations firm, worked as a magistrate and in the embassies in Belgium and London. She speaks “six or seven languages”.
Phryce-Jones has settled in St. Stephen in a home with Amish panelling, an old garden in the rear, birch trees and a river view. She has “lovely friends, just a handful.”
“I’m glad I’m here,” she added.
Will she do more chocolate painting?
“If they ask me,” she says with a smile.
“I suggested (painting) bars of chocolate for the chocolate lover who has everything. There’s an original painting, eat it or eat your heart out,” she said with a laugh.
Her paintings will be sold at the Chocolatier on Milltown Boulevard and the proceeds will be donated to a children’s charity. (“I always think children in the world have no one to stick up for them,” Phryce-Jones said.)
Tickets for the Taste of Chocolate tour are available at the Chocolate Fest booth in the Visitor Information Centre at town square. The tours will be offered daily from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 3 to Friday, Aug. 6, inclusive. In addition to a museum tour, customers can visit The Olde Bank on Milltown Boulevard to see Phryce-Jones at work along with other talented individuals.
Lombard said she wanted the tour to offer “a potpourri of chocolate creations” and in addition to Phryce-Jone’s chocolate art, it will feature an ancient Mayan drink from Bistro on the Boulevard, handmade chocolate roses on cupcakes by Heather Barton, as well as a kid’s corner where chocolate-themed books will be read daily. There will also be a magician, a puppet show as well as the chocolate fountain and a sampling table.
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