Lynn Buettner Biography 2012
Ms. Buettner has studied at several of the most prestigious art schools in the Northeast including: Rhode Island School of Design, The New York Art Students' League, the Paier College of Art in Connecticut, and the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Her work has been shown in galleries throughout the United States and Canada, and is in collections all over the world.
Summering on Martha's Vineyard Island, Ms. Buettner’s work quickly became known and collected by the local residents and returning island guests. Most originals were sold while still on her easel, and as her clientele grew, it become more difficult to keep up with the demand. Due to the high demand for her originals, she has now created high quality giclee reproductions and an entire product line which includes her signature greeting card with collectible art magnet, cards, magnets, and photo magnet frames. After licensing her designs another line of products was created intended for high volume orders including calendars, 3-d and regular notebooks, folders and all sized photo albums. Recently she was flown to China to do a art signing at the Canton World Trade Show.
After devoting the last twenty years to painting scenes ranging from realistic to impressionistic, Ms. Buettner is venturing out with her accomplished techniques and abilities, into the exciting and unusual world of intuitive expression. Letting go of conscious thoughts, an exciting, creative, sensual world emerges to be shared with the viewer. Her work has been used on many different projects including the Nash Bridges TV Show and the TV movie “Diary of a Mad Housewife”.
My life story as seen by my 20 year old daughter for her art mid term, 2011
My 20 year old daughter, Cassandra Phillips, wrote this biography about me for her college art mid term. She was supposed to choose a 'famous artist' and decided that would be about me.
Here is her story:
Lynn Buettner
by
Cassandra Phillips
I didn’t visit a gallery, but I have numerous times in the past. I grew up in a gallery. I grew up around exhibitions and shows. I grew up around millions of dollars of art that the artists would never see. The life of an artist is tough and there is a harsh truth to the phrase “a starving artist”. The artist I am writing about is my own mother, Lynn Buettner.
Lynn Buettner has been in shows and exhibitions all over the world. When I was growing up, she had her own gallery off of Cedros Ave in Solana Beach and another in Carlsbad. Growing up around these events I came to know the people behind the paintings and learn first hand their inspirations and motivations. Some people like the gallery owner of the most recent gallery my mother was in, are just in it for the money and could care less about the artist or the art. Others are in it for the passion. I like to think my mother is in art for the passion, and her first painting aptly testifies to this belief. The painting is called Life Force and Buettner has created her own biography on it:
“Life Force is a story of the condition of our world twenty-five years ago. From the natural forces of nature with the volcano erupting to man induced pollution ruining our water systems the same issues still command our attention today. This painting was created with exacting detail even before the artist had any formal or technical training. Highly symbolic the butterfly represents personal freedom of spirit. The center or nucleus is the embryo where all unconscious thought begins. Drawing from that inner energy all life and thought forms then develop.”
On that note, I’d like to include some background into Buettner’s artistic career. In 1955 Lynn was born in Hartford Connecticut. At the age of five, after her first hand cast, she knew what she wanted to do with her life. Most people should be so lucky as to know what they want to do even after twenty years of doing it! She went to college at the Massachusetts College of Art, Paier College of Art, New York Art Student League, and the Rhode Island School of Design. Lynn produced her first painting around the year 1983 as an expression of her interpretation of culture. She says that everything going on in the world back then that compelled her to create Life Force is still going on now, nearly thirty years later.
Buettner has traveled all over the world, most recently to China to promote her greeting card line at a trade show and artist signing. They made a product line for her-including calendars, notebooks, cards, etc-and invited her to the trade show to sign her work. How all this got started was that she was in Hawaii nearly six years ago where she came up with the brilliant idea to produce a product line. This was a year after her completion of Resurgence and someone saw the jungle scene on her business card, asked if she had a product line and that they would buy from her if she did. She herself was already playing with this idea, but that motivated her to get going on it.
Buettner has been featured in numerous magazines, most notable to the area: Carlsbad Magazine in September of 08 and two issues to the Coast News, 02-03. This is from the Carlsbad Magazine: Page 1, Page 2. In her career, Buettner has won several awards at various exhibits and she has judged numerous as well. She has taught art for thirty years in both private sessions and classroom environments. I myself was a part of this, helping to set up and tear down.
Some of her work is described to be Salvador Dali, a surrealist, meets Georgia O’ Keeffe, a nature enthusiast. This is evident in Life Force as she takes atypical images and creates something surreal and full of meaning. The Life Force painting not only uses the more obvious images of the whale harpooning, Indian struggles, volcanoes erupting and bald eagle feeding its young, but it also uses symbolic colors and hues, object placement and material. The painting is made out of oil, which, according to the artist, was a big deal back then and is still a big deal today. Thirty years ago the lines for gas were literally down the street, and today the gas prices are so high with the new oil spill and war in the Middle East.
She uses colors to portray different aspects of the world as well. For example, green is for the earth and for renewal, and the blacks and overall darkness is for the intensity of the situation. She said these colors were accurate and symbolic of nature. Buettner also says that all the images in the painting are related to each other as part of what was going on at the time. Such as nasa taking off to the moon, spooking a deer. The pollution raining down on a rainbow, the Indian hiding from a ferryboat, whale harpooning, volcanoes erupting, and the endangered bald eagle feeding the young. All, and more, are surrounding the nucleus of the painting, the fetus, and the representation of man.
The message of the painting Life Force was true thirty years ago and is true still today Buettner says. That message is that we can’t ignore nature on the way to the moon. That if we do so, in the long run the human race will be negatively affected, despite our technological advances.
A piece mentioned before that got her career stated was Resurgence. It is a jungle scene that echoes the appreciation and respect of nature found in Life Force. This painting was created in 2003 after being commissioned by the Iowa Child Rainforest Project. They commissioned this painting to show the public the various creatures in the rainforest. It is used to educate visitors and teach children to respect and appreciate nature. Lynn Buettner says that her painting gives an accurate depiction of the jungle life. The colors used are rich and vibrant and the forestry at the lower level is all darkly outlined to show the height of the canopy bed and the affects of light.
The more you look into this representation of the jungle the more creatures you see. For example, in the bottom left corner you may note three frogs. Look closely at the two hugging red frogs and you may see a rose. This is a brilliant intuitive inclusion that coincides nicely with her other paintings. It fits her style aptly and brings the whole collection together.
Citations
Grenda, Tim. "Carlsbad Painter Draws Line Between Business and Art". Carlsbad Magazine September/October 2008: 28-30.
Frank, Patrick. Prebles' Artforms. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.
Buettner, Lynn. "Buettner Art". July 23, 2010 <http://buettnerart.com/>.
Liz. "Things I am burning to see/do/throw myself into as soon as this work is over...". Unfurling. July 23, 2010 <http://liz-unfurling.blogspot.com/2009/06/things-i-am-burning-to-seedothrow.html>.
[email protected], "Georgia O'Keeffe Museum". Museum of O'Keeffe. July 23, 2010 <http://www.okeeffemuseum.org/>.