Wright enjoys painting in the artistic outdoors

Published 10:48 pm Sunday, June 10, 2007

B.J. Wright picked up a brush seven years ago and began filling canvases with bright hues again.

Wright, 60, took an art class in 1976 at the University of Tennessee. But when she and her husband, Dave, moved to Whitfield County with their young daughter, Wright took a job at the Tunnel Hill post office, where she was a mail carrier for 25 years and worked as a clerk for five years.

Now retired, Wright has more time for oil painting again. Three of her pictures are hanging in the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center as part of the “A Brush with History” exhibit, sponsored by the Civic Arts League of Chattanooga. Wright is one of 20 artists in the exhibit that highlights local artists.

Wright’s love for art reignited during a trip to Ireland in 1998. She was with her daughter, Ann, who suggested she go.

“If she hadn’t done that, I might have been doing pottery or playing dominoes,” Wright said.

Motorists who drive near the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center may see Wright painting in a field. She and other artists try to paint outdoors — known as “en plein air” — at least twice a month, she said.

“On Tuesday, at least three of us will meet in a meadow at Tunnel Hill at 7:30 a.m.,” Wright said on Sunday. “We’ll be painting until it gets hot.”

One of Wright’s pictures on display, “Appalachian Foothills Valley,” was painted from a blurred photograph. Wright added grass and fence posts that resembled her grandfather’s farm.

When not painting outside, Wright sometimes paints from photographs.

“If I’m working from a photo, I’m remembering where I was and when I was there,” Wright said. “It’s like I am back there.”

She plans to do more artwork in the future, seeking inspriration from the area around her as well as from photographs from her Ireland trip.

“Within the past year, I have been painting more and more,” Wright said. “And I have put more art on the Internet.

Wright has a blog for Southern artists who paint outdoors, www.southernpleinairpainters.blogspot.com, and a blog devoted exclusively to her paintings, www.beejw.blogspot.com.

Wright has invited artists from the south to join her blog. So far, two artists from Florida, three from Georgia and one from Tennessee participate.