sonia wentser improves with the art of using feathers to paint.

A LIFETIME PASSION, AN ART, A TECHNIQUE : TO PAINT WITH FEATHERS.

Knowing and Handling Feathers

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sonia Wentser

Sonia Koniaeff Wentser was born in Gatchina, Russia in March 1916.Her family lives through the Revolution and emigrates to Estonia in 1920.
As thousands of other refugees, they rebuild their life near Tallin.
Sonia's mother, Nadine, starts a hand-made flowers business.She had learned the trade for pleasure sometimes before the Revolution.

Sonia's interest in painting and art is really a lifetime affair.At 5, she studies drawing and water-color with Alexandra Jürgens,a well-known specialist in water-color and porcelain painting. Sonia studies also the flower making trade. Later she will make her living out of this trade.

Graduate in 1936 from the École Normale Supérieure d'Anvers in Belgium, she returns to Estonia. Back home she gives private French lessons and works as a translator for the Estonian Ministery of Foreign Affairs.

1937, she gets married to Eric Wentser, working as accountant at the Metro Goldwyn Myers branch in Tallin.

1939 : War shuffles the young couple's projects. To avoid being trapped between the German and Soviet armies the couple decides to leave for Belgium.As former student, Sonia still has her visa.

They never reach the Belgian border as they are stopped in Berlin.The Germans take away their passports and leave them with an I.D. card.

They are "suggested" to find dwelling in German occupied area.So they leave for Poland, Eric finds a job at the Tobis Movie Studios and Sonia opens a hand-made flowers workshop.

She will hire up to 65 employees. Most of them, young polish girls by being employed at the workshop avoided deportation to work camps.

1944, Sonia and Eric have to flee again because of the upcoming Soviet Army. They leave with 2 suitcases, the child's carriage for the baby girl, Elisabeth, born in 1943.

Sonia leaves by train with the child and her mother-in-law while Eric has to go by foot. They shall meet in Vienna.It took more than a month for them to meet. Shortly after they move to Bavaria and stay in Passau.

As war was ending they were relocated in an American Refugee Camp. Sonia teaches flower making and Eric is responsible of the Estonian refugee group.He spoke many languages.Therefore he has been required by the Germans as well as the Americans to take care of different refugees groups all along the War.

1948,the couple finally reaches Brussels,Belgium. Sonia meets again with her mother and sisters. Even if she has a Belgium teacher's diploma, she is not allowed to teach so she starts her flowers business again.

A second baby girl is born in 1948. The couple thinks of emigrating. They have a choice between 3 countries. They will choose Canada.

May 1951, Sonia, Eric, the 2 children, and another one on the way, grandmother "Oma" land in Dorval with a few suitcases and 500$cdn to start a new life.

Naturally, Sonia opens a flower making workshop. In 1960 she owns her Exclusive Hat Salon, on Sherbrooke street in Montreal. But the millinery industry crashes in 1963 leaving Sonia with no other choice then to have new ideas and a lot of courage. She will rebuild again her business by creating decorative flowers for stores. She works also with decorators complying with their specific needs.

Refining her art, Sonia Wentser has created and made thousands of flowers.

These flowers were made out of silk, feathers,leather and even copper. Whether Sonia,s flowers were a perfect copy of nature or a result of her imagination they always were a delight. She published in 1983 et 1985,two books about flower making.

Sonia Wentser created her first feather painting in 1960. It was called "The Fire Bird" inspired by a russian fairy tale.

This was the start of great creative adventure where Sonia's talent and imagination joined perfectly.

Sonia Wentser has created over 200 feather paintings which were sold all over the world. Three of her paintings from the Lavallin Collection are kept at the Musée d'Art Contemporain of Montreal.

At 80, Sonia Wentser speaks with passion of this unusual and millenary art she revived thirty six years ago.

She has written a book about feather painting (to be published).She hopes that the result of her passionate research will be perpetuated by young artists.

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ARS PLUMARIA

Nowadays Feather's usefulness makes us forget, or worse, not even think of it's glorious past !

Imagery of Ancient Civilisations as far back as 2,000 B.C.,shows Feathers in Egypt, as head-dress for man and horse.

Closer in time, versatile Feathers have suited nobility and gentry as well as showbusiness extravaganzas.

Yet, through all eras and continents Feathers reveal master craftsmen.Their artfulness in handling,dying, cutting,gluing,sewing the delicate material evolves into Fine Art.

Chinese artists are among the first to use Feathers to create figurative paintings.

Pre-Columbian civilisations use Feathers as well but their art is intimately connected to religious traditions and serves Royalty.

The Spanish conquest of the New World unveiles astonishing Maya, Aztec and Inca feather art work.

Pre-Columbian civilisations consider Feathers as precious as jade and gold.
The feather's craftsmen are revered as they design and produce the sacred ornaments for Priests and Royalty.
These artists have also created paintings, mosaics,shields and masks.Not much is left of these art pieces.The remains of this magnificent Art are preserved in Museums around the world.

Art never dies.

While Central America's rich Cultures are annihilated by the Conquistadores an Italian, Dionisio Minaggio creates in the 1600's "The Book of Feathers."
The book illustrates birds, hunters, horses, hounds all made out of natural feathers. This delicate art work is still exhibited as a Masterpiece.

Centuries later, in 1960, Sonia Wentser revives the Ancient Art of Feather Painting with sensitivity and modernism. For 36 years she has been developing her own technique which is recorded in a book to be published.

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THE TECHNIQUE

This art "consist in obtaining drawings from a background by using feathers..."

source:

Le commerce et l'industrie de la plume pour parures,par Edmond Lefebvre,
author's Editions,Paris,1914,50copies.

Defining Art of Feathers by this simple sentence is denying the artistic challenge involved in creating a painting with feathers.

Each painting requires its own technique and feathers impose their complexity.

As canvas the artist uses a thin wooden board covered with fabric.
The work is done with special florist tweezer and glue. A subject is drawn on the canvas and feathers or part of feathers are glued aroud the sketch to cover the background.
Sonia Wentser works on the subject starting by the top or the edge and completes the work either in the middle or the bottom of the sketch.This,though is not an absolute rule as each subject is a new challenge.

All along the process, the artist has to deal with feather's particularities. By their tridimensional structure, their own way of reflecting light and the diversity of shapes and colors the feathers oblige the artist to follow their rules.
For example, a dyed feather will not reflect light as a natural one.Feathers as human hair have their own way to reflect light.

By replacing oil paint or water-color by feathers Sonia Wentser has to create the effect of paintbrush stroke. Therefore she will search among hundreds of feathers before finding the proper ones which will suit her purpose.

Turkey feathers, by their straight edge will perfectly serve to illustrate masonry or roof tiles.

Feathers play with light.

Their particular way to reverberate light might totally distort part of a painting which the artist, while working on it, never noticed.
An absolute rule to follow if working with feathers: always look at the painting in different light situations.

To create transparency and give lightness to a painting, Sonia Wentser has to deal with feather's density.Therefore she might use a feather which she covers partially with another one or few hairs of another feather.
Some feathers have so thin hair that they,there again, serve the purpose.

There is definetely more to Art of Feathers than simply gluing feathers on a canvas.

Sonia Wentser combines the feathers so they animate the painting by their natural movement, their magnificent colors and their "wizardly" way to play with light.

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Last Update: May 10 2004 by Danielle Boissonneault