Arts & Culture Magazine - January/February 2008 - (Page 33) : : Profile FRANK& DIANACOLSON By Elisabeth Stevens. Photo by Salvatore Brancifort. Artists are lonely, isolated souls, driven by talent and ambition to lead tragic lives. True? No, false. Right here in Sarasota, productive and successful married couples are living proof that the Van Gogh myth does not always apply. A historic wooden house shaded by tall stands of bamboo not far from Sarasota Memorial Hospital has been home to Diana and Frank Colson since 1964. The Colsons, who have been married 51 years, met in California, then traveled to Europe and Alaska before settling here. “We liked Sarasota,” Diana recalls. “It was just a charming little fishing village then.” Diana, who had performed as a concert pianist as a child, soon began teaching music in local schools—Gulf Gate, Southside and Ashton. “We had two sons by then,” she explains, “but we still traveled the world every summer. As a result, I started making 16-millimeter short films for schools and libraries about places we’d seen, such as the Panama Canal.” Later, as the couple’s sons grew up and settled nearby, Diana also wrote screenplays and a youth opera about Mrs. Potter Palmer, an early and prominent Sarasota resident. Diana’s most recent, co-written, feature is Triple Destiny, in which a Sarasota woman disappears and a Mote Marine biologist goes to find her. “The story idea came to me in a dream,” she explains with a smile. “I get my best ideas that way.” While Diane is writing, Frank Colson is often working in his large, impressively well-organized studio next door to their house. An extremely productive potter, sculptor and fabric artist and teacher, Frank has displayed his diverse clay, metal and fiber works in international venues ranging from Stockholm and Tokyo to Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan and will show here at the Selby Gallery in May. He also was the founder of Sarasota’s first pottery school in 1964, and then, one of the first art foundries in town. His wall-mounted and freestanding works in clay, bronze or linen and silk, dominate both their home and his studio. If Diana dreams of a dramatic plot, Frank dreams of compelling multiples. Certainly, his two favorite subjects—horses and unsmiling faces—are on view everywhere. The horses—sometimes flying, sometimes braying, and often standing alone or in small groups—frequently resemble the calm, timeless steeds crafted during the Han Dynasty of Ancient China. Whether made of light-reflecting bronze or clay that has been smoke-fired or painted in many colors, these stylized sculptures are not individual animals but repeated evocations of the essential spirit and vital energy of all horses. Similarly, Frank Colson’s often dark-eyed faces—sometimes seen on fiber art wall hangings or on greater-thanlife-size figures, sometimes multiplied and varied on block-like, modular elements to form entire walls—are never personal portraits or realistic remembrances. “These are spiritual face forms,” the sculptor says. “They are not masks.” Van Gogh would have to stand corrected if he had the chance to meet these two. With lives drenched in aesthetic forte, the walls of this creative couple’s home must reflect unimaginable inspiration. For more information on Frank Colson, visit www.colsonart.com. Diana Colson editing film Hankau Horse by Frank Colson. arts and culture magazine : : 33 http://www.colsonart.com
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