The quaint house standing at the corner of 15th Avenue and Villard Street is like no other. Instead of furniture, a cornucopia of colorful artwork fills the walls of the house.
According to a promotional pamphlet, Maude Irvine Kerns bought the house in hopes of promoting “broader opportunities for people of Lane County to be active in the creation and exhibition of art.” In 1950, she and a group of local artists founded the Maude Kerns Art Center.
Born in 1876, Kerns was from Portland and was a painter for 75 years, MKAC executive director Karen M. Pavelec said.
MKAC is a non-profit community center for the visual arts and features exhibits by the internationally recognized Kerns as well as works by other artists.
Although various paintings are presented at MKAC, the Salon Gallery is a room that is dedicated to Kerns’ paintings.
“Kerns’ art collection is displayed on a regular basis to preserve Kerns’ legacy,” arts program manager Shayann Hoffer said.
A University student from 1896 to 1899, Kerns later became the head of art education at the University in 1921.
“Kerns was a painter who worked with materials such as oil, print and watercolor. She also experimented with pigments, fabric and sculpture,” said her grandniece, Leslie Brockelbank, 78, who is a volunteer at MKAC.
Unlike other women during the early 20th century who taught art instead of being an artist, Kerns was ahead of her time, Brockelbank said.
Kerns was one of the first women in Pacific Northwest to paint non-objectively, and Pavelec said she used art to express moods, emotions and spirituality.
Although Kerns painted classic subjects such as portraits and landscapes, she also did abstract art that expressed her concerns about what was going on around her.
“She painted typical things like street scenes, railroad stations, circuses and things that expressed life,” Brockelbank said.
“New Works on Paper by Kerns” is the current theme for Kerns’ display in the Salon Gallery, and it will be on exhibit through November 15. The display features 23 small-scale colorful paintings hung at varied lengths on the walls of the Salon Gallery.
Some of the pieces include “Form and Color of Freedom,” “Approach of Winter” and “Strange Bird With Fruit” and “Two Crosses.”
Brockelbank said that these non-objective paintings were done in the last two decades of Kerns’ life.
“The displays show expressions of where we are going,” Brockelbank said. “They are abstract pieces that expresses her spiritual thinking.”
MKAC is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays when there are exhibits on display.
For more information, visit www.mkartcenter.org or call
345-1571.