Page 6 - The Clare Connection_Fall 2019 Flipbook
P. 6
“Chicago’s Chinatown”
Ed Wentz
ARTIST PROFILE
Ed Wentz: Breaking the Rules
C lare resident Ed Wentz doesn’t abide by the rules when it comes to art.
Upon retiring, Ed took up watercolor, honing his unique style, his individual
technique. He woke up one day, he says, and he decided to break the rules.
That’s where the fun and creativity came in.
“Everything has been painted today,” he says. “What an artist’s objective is now
is taking the usual and making it unusual.”
Ed will use a photo, for example, and create a vignette. He takes what he wants
from it, removes what he doesn’t and adds his own flare. He plays around with
“To an artist, having colors and enjoys the freedom of his own interpretations. Sketches from his
travels with his wife, Jane Ellen Murray, also serve as inspiration for his paintings.
somebody hang your
“You’re creating something,” Ed says. “You’re not copying something. There’s a
work, and pay for it, to certain period of the painting where it becomes your own.”
boot, is an honor.” His watercolors typically take three sittings to complete, he says. Each time he
returns to paint, he has a fresh perspective.
To date, Ed has finished hundreds of paintings. And it all began with a career in
advertising.
Over the years, Ed climbed the ranks at various agencies, working toward his
goal of art direction and winning awards for his campaigns. With each ad he laid
out, he used a marker that was similar to a chisel-edge watercolor brush, which
led to his comfortability with watercolors.
“It was like going to your sandbox every day,” Ed says of his career.
His creativity then brought him back to the American Academy of Art on
Michigan Avenue, where he took classes on scholarship in high school. He spent
years teaching, helping artists tease out their strengths.
“What I would do is seek out the best part of what they do,” he says. “I develop
their style, not mine.”
Eventually, Ed was named President of the Academy, and they put his very own
artwork on display, too. That’s the point when he truly began to consider himself
an artist.
