Current & Past Articles » General News

Artists throughout the region share what inspires their abstract creations

November 5, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By CONSTANCE SCRAFIELD

To celebrate the upcoming winter time when artists are inclined to increase their production of art, three local Abstract artists of different mediums joined the Citizen for a Zoom interview to talk about what their art as abstract, rather than realistic, means to them as the major force in their own creativity.

Taking part were photographer Peter Dušek of Hockley Valley, fibre artist Pat Hertzberg, living near Alton and Mono- based painter Deb Menken.

Their approaches to doing art and what they want to achieve as artists varied. 

Peter Dusek opened with the thought, “Compared to a conversation between two people, abstract is like a direct meeting of the minds as opposed to translating it into words first and then back into the mind.”

.He had little interest in art when his job was “to make beautiful code.”

Asked what makes code beautiful, Deb Menken pitched in “It works! Code has to be perfect.”

They share a common but unrelated professional history in the tech business but Menken has also been truly creating art since she was very young. By coincidence, 2015 marked a stepping stone in each of their artistic lives.

For Menken, it was the year she became more aware of artists paintings and one day like a bolt, she wondered, “Could I learn to do that?”

Since that heady moment, Menken has accepted the challenge to do ever better as a painter and has developed such a passion for painting abstracts that she cannot imagine herself ever giving it up.

With a studio in the Alton Mill Arts Centre, she does much of her painting and meeting visitors to the historic site. Menken admits that abstract is not for everyone but for those who visit her studio, there is the time and chance to talk about it.

“Sometimes, it’s hard to explain the lure of abstract,” was her comment. “You don’t know what the final product will be.”

The year 2015 was when Dušek realized that he wanted to photograph and began to be interested in visiting galleries and in art.

Pat Hertzberg’s early life in the arts was her time studying Fine Arts. She recalled that lessons in her school focussed to begin, on realism in a painting and then they taught the students how to abstract it.

Following school, she went into fashion design for 12 years, finally realizing that she wanted to return to fine art. That brought her to creating abstract with her fibre art. She still struggles with the perception of accuracy where abstract is her goal. In recent years, Hertzberg has loosened and learned to be less rigid.

“Perfectionism is not good,” she pronounced. 

Hertzberg loves working in fibre art, saying that, with fibre the possibilities are limitless. She believes too that viewers always look for realism in abstract.

Some of Hertzberg’s intricately woven and constructed fibre pieces can take her two months of working full time to complete one. She explained how fibre allows her to dye, stitch, tear and cut anyway she wants. Knowing when a piece is done is another skill.

“You look at it and see there is nothing left to do,” she explained and she has pioneered techniques with molding fibre that are unique. Part of the joy is new techniques.

Menken agrees she reaches that point when she is done intuitively.

Abstract allows the artist to explore feelings and the many ways there are to express them.

“Sometimes you look at your work and you hate it!” Menken warned. Hertzberg joined her to say, “Just keep at it, art needs you to keep pushing, keep adding – it’s called the ugly middle but it always comes around.”

Abstract works spontaneously with your feelings. 

They began in earnest to describe Why Abstract.

From Dusek, “What I want when someone looks at my pictures, is their feeling of elation that music can give – that joy you feel when you first hear music that you love.”

For Hertzberg, noting that it is love of the process, allowing the artist time to arrive to an end result. The excitement of the process, to immerse themselves in the work.

Dusek is blazing a trail of his own. Once he began with photography, he learned how photographs can be manipulated – a snowy field with a simple tree on a hill’s slope can be tidied by removing some elements. Many artistic touches to his photos added a mystic lure, more unusual as his skills developed.

Most recently, Dusek has developed a process, which he describes as a secret.

“I am photographing the wind, the sun and the water,” he said. ”Nothing else,” he clarified.

His photos come up as patterns of coloured lines in which faces or forms might be construed but only by chance or imagination. One has to stand and gaze.

There has been much that abstract has taught each of them over their years. Most importantly is that abstract is limitless, agreeing that an artist’s limits are only set by oneself.

So: Why abstract? 

Pat Hertzberg is sure that we need it so much to off-set the digital age and keep our own integrity as artists.

Menken observed that as people are aging, they seem to be appreciating abstract more.

Abstract reaches the artist and the viewer both at the very depth of us to keep that strong.

The goal is always to create something new.

Readers Comments (0)