“Art is a skill. It is teachable. It’s learnable. It’s not something that only certain people can do.”
Deborah Lawton, Airdrie’s multidisciplinary artist, is driven by the belief that anyone can learn artistic skill.
“Art is as viable and as important a skill to be taught to people as any other life skill, such as dance or swimming,” she explains from her home studio, which she calls Art Branch Studio.
“I do a lot of different aspects of art, hence my studio name has to do with branching out.”
Indeed, multiple projects, from drawings to sculptures to paintings, fill every available space. Her recent focus has been on bas-relief.
“Relief is often called the fourth art form because it’s not a drawing or a painting, and it’s not a sculpture because it’s not in the round. It’s usually flat, so it’s one-sided,” Lawton says.
Her subjects have been branches and leaves.
“I’m exploring the veining in leaves and all the different nuances that are there and looking at them as these little microscopic treasures,” Lawton says.
Her process begins with a 10×10-inch clay mould she creates from a drawing, followed by days of layering different inks, acrylics, washes and metallic powders. The result is a stunning work of art that evokes a sense of nature’s wonder.
As much as she loves her own projects, her enduring passion is teaching others the skills she’s learned. Lawton has been a teacher of art in various forms for 35 years in Airdrie and Calgary, helping to inspire young and old to believe in their potential.
“It’s something to see a student with a limiting belief about their capabilities, and then, with coaching, you hear them say, ‘Wow, I can do this,’” she says.
Lawton is also a tireless promoter of other artists. Her proverbial brushstrokes are all over the city’s arts landscape. She a founding member and artist liaison of the long-running Voice and Vision Collaboration, a member of the City of Airdrie’s Arts & Culture Council, and, three years ago, was the force behind the art gallery in the Kraft & Co. Law building.
“Sean Kraft was managing [her late husband] Jim’s estate, and they were moving to a larger building, and I thought, ‘Oh, they have more wall space,’” Lawton says.
She told him of her involvement in Voice and Vision, and suggested artists would love a dedicated exhibition space. “And so he said, ‘Oh, okay, what do you need?’”
Kraft’s firm installed the hardware, and Lawton rotates the art every four months, curating the theme and pieces in partnership with a growing list of Airdrie artists.
“It’s allowing that opportunity for artists to exhibit and to be seen, and there’s at least one art piece being sold at every single show,” she says.
For Lawton, local exhibition spaces such as at Kraft and the new Inspire facility point to a viable arts community.
“The thing that I want people in Airdrie to know is how incredibly valuable the arts are to our community,” she says. “It’s a teachable thing; it’s not some isolated miracle that happened in another person’s life.”
