My 'Artist of the Week' presentation was on Marilyn VonTungeln, an artist born in South Carolina. She was always interested in art, producing amazing pastel pieces (right) at the young age of sixteen. Later in life, however, she moved to Texas, a state whose endless rolling deserts would inspire a range of landscape pieces from her. What I always thought had set her apart, however, was her use of encaustics. The encaustic medium involves melting wax onto a small iron and smearing the resulting liquid wax onto a canvas similar to posterboard; thick and smooth. Once wet, the wax could be manipulated using a range of tools, but the result is a beautiful piece that maintains texture and dries with a reflective scene, like Marilyn's "Two's Company" (left).
Her talent was more than enough to get her into several art groups and a mall gallery, her work being influential enough that now, barely a year after her death, she is still celebrated with the presentation of the Marilyn VonTungeln Memorial Award, a $100 recognition given by the Rio Bravo Water colorists Association to members of their group. Her legacy continued through her daughter, Brenda, who briefly help a career as an appliance manual illustrator and a 3D design artist. Brenda also home-taught her daughters (me and my sister) in art, and I hope to live up to her good name. -Twin the Younger
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