Another local artist who relies on found material in a different way is painter Ken Pease.
His art consists of bright, colorful cartoon characters created with recycled paint on found wood. He’ll buy paint that’s been returned to a home store, and he’s made friends with employees at cabinet shops. “You can call it recycling or you can call it cheap,” he quipped.
Pease has noticed a difference in the sales of his art since the recession began. Before moving here last year (his wife, Jenene Case Pease, joined the University of Illinois Springfield faculty), Pease worked full time as a graphic artist for a Florida company that made logo T-shirts of college sports teams.
“I moved here with thoughts of teaching art classes before all that was cut,” Pease said. Instead, he works part time as the manager of the Visual Arts Gallery at UIS.
“Who knows? If the economic times were better, something might have turned into a full-time position, and it would have made things a little easier,” Pease said.
Pease was featured in a October 1, 2010, article in The State Journal-Register.
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