Ayesha Burkey, bringing joy to the art of painting
by Karen Yekel
Hot Springs Star - July 1, 2008
Artist Ayesha Joy Burkey works on “Sunset Over Wind Cave,” which she painted entirely with a palette knife. The poem of Burkey’s inspiration is “Nova,” by Robinson Jeffers - “And we know that the enormous and vulnerable beauty of things is the face of God to live gladly in its presence.” Karen Yekel/Hot Springs Star
HOT SPRINGS – Ayesha Joy Burkey discovered painting as an art form by accident.
Ten years ago, at the age of 47, Burkey suffered a stroke that left her impaired physically and mentally. “This is the most interesting thing about me,” said Burkey, whose motor skills and other areas of former impairment are but shadows of their former existence.
She said her neuropsychologist wanted her to get her speech and memory back, and a friend suggested painting.
“I took a week-long course at the Cape Cod School of Art,” she said, remembering the fatigue that overcame her during that time, which did not deter her from achieving her goal of learning a new skill.
Burkey said she was pretty focused career-wise at the time and was one of the first physician assistants in the country. “The stroke just shifted everything for me, she said, “But the outgrowth of it is that I discovered talent, which I never considered I had, and discovered art as a healing modality.”
Other than her first art class and a few focused classes occasionally, Burkey is self-taught, through books and trial and error.
“Just doing it, and trying out new things,” she said and commented there are many wonderful books now through which one can learn. “I approach painting the same way I do everything, she said, “I just look it up.”
The styles of painting she is attracted to are Impressionism and Fauvism. The most famous of the impressionists is Monet, while Fauvism is described as a style of wild brush work and piercing colors. “I like the Fauvist style because the colors are so bold,” said Burkey. The most famous of the Fauvist artists was Henri Matisse.
Burkey gets most of her inspiration for a painting from nature (“there’s overwhelming beauty here”), and she has been working lately with abstract human form as well. Burkey describes the process of beginning a painting.
The first step in painting is preparing the canvas, or support. There are different kinds of support, such as canvasm masonite or wood.
In wood or masonite preparation, gesso, a calcium carbonate product, is applied in three layers. “Gesso is an acrylic primer,” said Burkey, who described the modern gesso made with titanium dioxide, then noted that some artists prefer the original formula, which was mixed with rabbit-skin glue and used as an absorbent primer coat.
The issue surrounding the use of each pertains to sustainability of the support and whether the painting will delaminate from the acrylic gesso surface, rendering it useless, a process that may happen over several decades.
“I don’t figure I’m going to be in the Louvre, so it’s not an issue for me,” quipped Burkey.
The most difficult step in the process for Burkey is drawing the subject. “You must be able to draw,” she said.
A multitude of drawings lead her to create a painting in a class in Chadron that moved the instructor to tears.
“It is so humbling to paint something that moves someone emotionally,” she said.” To me, that’s art, not just painting.”
In addition to oil and water color painting, Burkey creates unique jewelry pieces, which she will have on display at Pine Hills Retirement Community on Thursday, June 12, at 7 p.m.
