Starr Kopper
Story Teller
“Courage for the deed, grace for the doing”
As an artist, I am interested first in light and the relationship between forms and colors
At my summer house in Roque Bluffs, Maine, often paint outdoors, or in the shelter of a ledge or doorway, preferably in early morning and late afternoon when the light comes slanting and colors are nuanced.
I focus not on detail, but on the movement and rhythm of light and color across the surface before a composition is a hillside or a river or a storm, it is an abstract design.
I love the buttery quality of oil paint and the layering of pastels. I love surprises in the weather, and I try to portray specific moments, just enough to catch the sensation of a time and place while the feeling is fresh.
I climb the bluffs, prop the easel on ledges near the sea and still lose brushes down cracks between the rocks.
Starr Kopper grew up in New York City, spent childhood weekends in Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. She graduated from Oberlin College and earned the MF A in Painting from The American University in Washington, D.C. in 1978.
I taught Art at The Norwood School in Bethesda, Maryland for twenty-five years and part time in a city school as a volunteer member of Friends of the Arts, Washington, DC. I led annual summer landscape painting workshops to Castello di Spannochia, Siena, Italy in the 1980s under the auspices of The Etruscan Foundation. My work is in private collections in the U.S. and abroad.
I’ve traveled with the paint box in France, Greece, Haiti, Holland, Italy, Morocco and The UK. I began painting in Down east Maine during the 1970s and live in Roque Bluffs, Maine half the year.
I climb the bluffs, prop the easel on ledges near the sea and still lose brushes down cracks between the rocks. The un-expected is part of the plein air adventure.
“Courage for the deed, grace for the doing” is the motto of The Shipley School, where I graduated.
In the long run it's about the electricity of the moment;
transmitting the sensation of a time and place onto the canvas while the feeling is fresh.
