The Saline Reporter
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Open house set for local artist
Dianna Soisson to share her works at Two Twelve Arts Center
By Sue G. Collins, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: January 10, 2008
Saline colored-pencil artist Dianna Soisson gets her inspiration from three sources.
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Three unwavering, powerful foundations that brought her life meaning when she nearly lost it four years ago.
When Soisson suffered from a double pulmonary embolism, she remembers laying it all on the line with her maker, asking for her life to continue.
Now, it's her faith, her family and her passion for art that complete her.
"I promised, at that moment, I'd never take my gift for granted and I vowed to draw more every day," said Soisson, this month's featured artist at Two Twelve Arts Center in downtown Saline.
Her precise, inspired colored-pencil works of fruit and flora and sunny still life art are often mistaken for photographs. She uses up to 15 layers of color on her Stonehenge paper canvas, where she brings to life bulging peonies, lithe tulips and luscious lilacs so lifelike you can nearly breathe in the sweet scent.
Her mums reach toward the sun in a bright garden corner. The dew on her crocuses nearly drips off the paper. She considers the water droplet her signature, having successfully colored the translucent beads of dew for the first time after her near fatal embolism. It was an "aha moment" for her.
"My dad also urged me to draw more when I was growing up in Pennsylvania. And, my mom organized private art lessons with her artist friend," Soisson said.
Soisson earned a bachelor's degree in art education from Edinboro State University and headed a high school program for six years.
She and her husband, Bill, moved to Saline 14 years ago and have three children, Stephanie, Billy and Julie. As a stay-at-home mom, Soisson found little time for the labor-intensive oil medium she'd been consumed with before she was married.
"Bill gave me a beautiful set of Prismacolor pencils for Christmas in 2000 and I found them very unintimidating and not at all fussy," she said.
It has been true love ever since. For the art, too.
Soisson will carefully compose a digital photo from which to draw.
"It used to take three or four rolls of film before I got one frame that I was happy with," she said.
Now, she can tweak an arranged bowl of berries, move a crystal pitcher just a touch or adjust the light to obtain the right vision.
She prefers to work in open space, softened by music ranging from Mozart to Martina McBride, depending on her mood. The country music, she says, takes her back to her childhood and happy simpler days with a jumbo coloring book and new box of 64 Crayola crayons.
Her show titled, "Devotion," featuring a dozen works of art plus her note cards and prints, runs through Feb. 29 at Two Twelve Arts Center, 212 W. Michigan Ave., in Saline. A reception, free and open to the public, will be held from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Visit the Web site www.twotwelvearts.org for more information.
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