Jennifer Brown prefers painting urban architecture.
P.J. Rankin Hults excels at German scherenschnitte and Fraktur, a combination of folk-art lettering, images and Pennsylvania-Dutch paper-cutting.
Rankin Hults' Fractur work.
Rankin Hults' Fractur work.
Brown's landscape
Brown's architecture work.
Brown's architecture work.
First Friday will be a first for Jennifer Brown.
The 26-year-old artist will host her first public show of her charcoal drawings and oil paintings.
"This will be a really comfortable environment to make my debut in, since I will be around so many people I know," says Brown, who will show her art inside White Good & Co. Advertising.
Brown, who works for White Good, is one of the company's two featured artists. The other is P.J. Rankin Hults, who owns and operates Praying Mantis Folk Art Studio, Strasburg.
Whereas Brown's favorite subject matter is architecture, Hults practices a form of German scherenschnitte and Fraktur, a combination of folk-art lettering, images and Pennsylvania-Dutch paper-cutting.
Shawn Barron, White Good's event coordinator, says visitors will appreciate the varying styles of both artists. In turn, he says First Friday gives the company an opportunity to give back to the community.
"We have three philanthropic missions: support the arts, education and historic preservation," says Barron. "These First Friday events touch on all three."
Neither of White Good's featured artists is a stranger to First Friday. Both have attended many times before.
Brown's visits were all about personal exploration and enjoyment of the city that inspires her. This month, with perhaps hundreds of people on the verge of exploring her work, she is drawing and painting at almost every opportunity.
"I'm always in the process of creating, but not every work is a keeper," Brown says with a laugh.
Most of her work is drawn off of photographs she has taken of stylistic buildings and architectural accents in Lancaster.
"I work in an urban environment," Brown says. "So I use what the city presents to me in my art."
Hults' inspiration dates back nearly 30 years. After graduating from Kutztown University with a degree in art education, she took some Fraktur classes at the Landis Valley Museum.
While she loved the artform, Hults still felt that it could be more graphic. So she added the paper-cutting aspect of scherenschnitte.
Despite having created countless works of art over the years, Hults says she takes pride in the fact that all of her cuttings have been unique.
"The challenge of creating something new and original every time I am creating a new piece gives me a lot of pleasure," she says.
Three decades ago, Hults was a Landis Valley Museum student. In recent years, her work has been exhibited there, as well as at the Lancaster County Cultural Museum and the Folk Art Center, in New York City.
In 2006, her husband John retired and helped her found the Praying Mantis studio. Today he also assembles his wife's art into highly decorative frames, which he creates.
John Hults utilizes his wife's artwork in many of his other woodworking projects, including wall cabinets, benches, boxes and turned vessels.
More recently still, Hults' work has gone global, as she has expanded into design work for "Primitives by Kathy."
"Many of my designs are now being mass-produced for wholesale distribution," Hults says.
Her retail work is featured in paper cuttings, boxes, ornaments, scrap art and punch-needle patterns. Plans to incorporate her artwork into pottery are also in the works.
As a professional working in the field of advertising, Brown also gets to see her work in a variety of interesting places and formats. And while she isn't quite as well-known as Hults, she has been developing her talents for many years.
Though she can't pin down an exact date as to when she first began drawing, it does date to her early childhood.
"Like today, I would draw off pictures I would take with my camera," Brown says. "Later, as a teen, I received some really key support."
While attending Manheim Township High School, Brown says art teacher JoAnne Sinclair pulled her aside and encouraged her to take her talents further.
"Her encouragement meant the world to me," Brown says. "Art had always been a love, but now it is a passion."
Brown says those who come downtown Friday are in for a treat, and not just because the White Good exhibit area will be filled with amazing art.
"The whole downtown art scene is growing," Brown says. "Many probably don't think of Lancaster as a huge art place, but there is a lot of talent here, waiting for visitors to come and appreciate it."
P.J. RANKIN HULTS AND JENNIFER BROWN
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