“After 38 years of nursing people back to health, I now apply that care and tender touch to my paintings” — Carol Jones
Painter, Carol Jones
There is a phrase – the healing arts, that applies specifically to the practice of medicine, but we might as easily use it as a descriptive for the therapeutic value of making art. Beginning in the early 20th century, art sought to challenge, provoke, and even agitate, but the contemplative aspect of painting has stood the test of time.
Carol Jones was a medical professional who occupies her time now painting, and, for her, making art is a process that echoes her work as a nurse: “As a retired registered nurse, I paint for fun and relaxation. Going into my studio and putting on my uniform, now a painter's smock, I smile as I look at the blank piece of board from my local hardware store. I visualize what the finished product will look like after being massaged with brushes and oils. After 38 years of nursing people back to health, I now apply that care and tender touch to my paintings. Each painting is special, just like my patients were, with its own special needs. I have to step back to study and diagnose what would bring more beauty to the piece - a little stroke of color here or a bold push of texture there. And when it's finally ‘well’, I take joy in sending it out into the world.”
"Drapes" by Carol Jones, 24x30in, oil on board (2012), $600 | BUY NOW
"Reflections in a Pinwheel" by Carol Jones, 18x24in, oil on board (2015), $500 | BUY NOW
Like so many artists, Jones pursues a personal course of study, continually taking workshops and studying under nationally known artists such as Charles Gruppe, Caroline Jasper, Robert Hoffman, Cindy Overall, Lori Putnam, Roger Dale Brown, and Dominic Vignola. “Just as with the continuing education courses I took in nursing, each class gives me wonderful new ideas and techniques.”
Jones enjoys painting landscapes, but it is in the near-abstract imagery of her fabric studies that we see qualities of care and nurturing that seems to express her process and aesthetic. They are quiet, but filled with compassion.
Hometown: Elizabethtown, Kentucky
Age: 67
Education: BSN
Website: http://www.caroljonesart.com
"Evening Sail" by Carol Jones, 24x30in, oil on board (2017), $500 | BUY NOW
"Irish Fishing Village" by Carol Jones, 22x28in, oil on board (2011), $500 | BUY NOW