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Local artist (continued) |
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Herald photo by Rose Hooper Holiday images of children bringing home a Christmas tree, but stopping to play in the snow along the way, and of children dressed as angels lining up to sing Christmas carols add a festive touch to popcorn tins sold this season by Target. The images were created by Linda Kotila of Sylva. |
Most folks in Jackson County know Kotila as a watercolor artist and are familiar with her holiday renditions of Dillsboro. But her commissioned portraits, original paintings and limited edition prints hang in galleries and in public and private collections from North Carolina to California, Florida to Canada, in the British Isles, Japan, the Republic of Taiwan, Iceland and Columbia, South America. Olive Oil Can of Illinois has several of her images on file in their client book.
"Some folks at Target looked at my designs and especially liked my 'Angel Band,' which shows six children dressed in white robes and wings with halos on top of their head, all lining up to sing a Christmas carol. Target wanted a bit more action, and they specifically asked for one child with a Walkman and another eating candy, so I incorporated that. |
Target commissioned Linda Kotila of Webster to create two Christmas scenes for the store's holiday popcorn tins. One image, "O Christmas Tree!" shows children bringing home the perfect tree but taking time to delight in a snowfall. This image Kotila dubbed "Angel Band" and includes several children dressed in white robes and wings with halos on top of their head. "They are lining up to sing a Christmas carol, but none of the children are perfect angels - they are real people," said Kotila. "The only real angel in the work is the yellow labrador." The tins, filled with caramel and butter toffee popcorn, are also available at Jackson's General Store. |
"None of the children are perfect angels - they are real people. The only real angel in the work in the yellow labrador," said Kotila, who uses humor heavily in her artwork.
Her "O Christmas Tree!" depicts children bringing home the perfect tree but taking time to delight in a snowfall. Children of all sizes are catching snowflakes, building snowmen and laying on their backs and waving their arms and feet to create a snow angel. "You can consider this a snow fantasy because all of the children are good children," she said. "Nobody's rubbing snow in another child's face and nobody's shoving snow down someone's back." Target commissioned 15,000 cans of each print. "I think they must be selling pretty well," said Kotila. "My friends have bought them for me from different stores around the south and said there were just a few more left in some of the stores." Creating an image is like writing, said this artist, who crafted Christmas cards for National Geographic Society, Smithsonian, the Audobon Society and the National Railway Museum. "First, I notice somebody or get an idea and then I build on it. I'll close my eyes and think about it," she said. "After the thought process, when I start working, it just evolves, or congeals." |
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The most fun, she said, is the color. "When people look at these two Christmas works, I want the reds, greens, blues and yellow to say, 'We're happy; we're excited; this is fun.'
"In my work, I try to make use of light to its fullest, to keep the pigment as delicate, as transparent, as only watercolor can be, and to leave out what is nonessential, whatever might create a boundary on the painting, whatever might stop our flow of thought," she said. Kotila said when she sells an image she never knows exactly what the reproduction might be. "Sometimes the color is not right, sometimes the image is distorted. In the case of Target, I knew the exact size of the tins, and I was pleased with the final effects." At Jackson's General Store each tin, complete with a bag of caramel and butter toffee popcorn, sells for $11.98. Back to Local Artist. |
Back to Archive: 12-02-99. |