Compelling images in Island artist’s book

Coinciding with Women’s History Month, Island artist Janet Culbertson has a new book out, “Mythmaker,” showcasing her groundbreaking images, ink and pastel drawings that tell the story of Woman as heroine finding her path through life, reconnecting to herself, and to nature.

This series of 20 dramatic drawings was originally inspired in 1974 by Joseph Campbell’s book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” taking his concept of the hero’s journey and applying it to women, she says, “and their specific struggles to find balance and meaning in their lives, separate from men and traditional roles.”

The original artwork was exhibited and acquired in 2004 and is currently in the permanent collection of The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

Like so many Islanders, Ms. Culbertson first visited here when “a friend said you must come see us, in the late 60s.” She and her husband, Doug, fell in love with the Island and rented a house with family members and friends.

When her husband retired in 1985, they moved here full time. In contrast to the stark images in the book, Ms. Culbertson has also painted beautiful, colorful landscapes of Shelter Island sunrises, sunsets and tranquil waters. She is one of a group of Island artists in the ArtSI group, who work independently but make efforts to support each other, including an annual tour of the artists’ studios.

An ardent advocate of preserving the environment, she closely follows the struggles to protect the Island’s space and water. She credits former Island officials like Jim Dougherty and Albert Dickson for actively working to preserve parcels of land and fight overdevelopment that threatens the Island’s water supply.

Shelter Island is a long way from her childhood in the Pittsburgh area, “coal mine country,” she recalls, “slag heaps. I saw the damage done by the mines, they didn’t repair them, they just left.” Creating her own beauty, she was always spending her allowance on art supplies like crayons and chalk at Woolworth’s.

Fortunately, her talent was noticed by sculptor Dorothy Reister, who taught a children’s art class at Carnegie Tech. Ms. Reister, an advocate for conservation and preservation, was a role model for the young artist. Ms. Culbertson was honored to have a 40-year retrospective recently at the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, N.Y., the art park opened by Ms. Reister and her husband, which is part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Historic Artists’ Homes and Studios program.

After attending Carnegie Mellon, Ms. Culbertson moved to New York City. She earned a masters from New York University and made a living teaching art at Pratt and Pace Universities.

Many of her artworks are stark, disturbing images evoking the threats to the earth’s environmental treasures, such as the Galapagos Islands and the Grand Canyon. She quotes President Theodore Roosevelt, speaking of the Grand Canyon: “A natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is … You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.”

She was recently chosen to be a recipient of the Pollock/Krasner Grant and was invited by Lillian Ball to exhibit several of her works in the Parrish Museum’s Artists Choose Artists exhibit this spring. Also, the Parrish invited her to be one of the speakers on their Pecha Kucha program. She is gifting “Mythmaker” to several museums and is planning to offer it at the Shelter Island Historical Society along with select prints from the series.

She will speak at the Shelter Island Public Library in a Friday Night Dialogue on June 10. For more information about the artist, visit www.janetculbertson.com. The book can be purchased by emailing [email protected] Meet the new