Rebecca
McDannold 
Art has been part
of my life for all of my life. My maiden
name was Nelson. When I was just a little
child, my mother used to take me to the
Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City,
Missouri (now the Nelson-Atkins Museum of
Art). Because of the name,
"Nelson", in the title, I really
thought it belonged to my family. Given that
misconception in my childish mind, it seemed
natural to me that I would be an artist.
After all, I had my very own museum!
My style is
mostly from my imagination, though the
treatment is realistic. Michael Parkes calls
his work Magic Realism. This name seems to
fit my work as well. Though I have used
and also taught many techniques and media to
my former students, my current favorite
mode of working is
with two-dimensional media, mostly oils,
acrylics and watercolors.
Artist
Statement
It is while working on
the surface that ideas and questions
about life emerge. Most of the work has
some philosophy or observation about the
nature of being human imbedded in the
imagery. Often the work is gently
whimsical.
It is the process of
making art that unveils the mystery if
one really listens. My job is to
continue to produce the work no matter what
is going on in my
life. The judgment of the finished
product is for others to make. Some of
the work is successful. Some is not.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to engage
myself in the process, just as it has been
for artists for centuries.
Joseph Campbell said
that the only difference between the artist
and the mystic is that the artist is bound
to reality by his craft, and the mystic
has no such tie to ground him. Sometimes
I feel like a shaped
balloon, lightly bobbing above the
earth, tied to this world by the
thread of my artistic bondage while painting
rainbows among the clouds.
The work is held in
private and public collections, and has been
exhibited in many states. My most famous
clients are Baseball Hall of Fame winner,
Ozzie Smith, formerly of the St. Louis
Baseball Cardinals, and Mark Victor Hansen,
coauthor of the Chicken Soup for the Soul
books. Both have commissioned
Magic Realism portraits for themselves.
