By James Straub

“We had two weeks on Asian art in four years of college,” Marshall said. “They left an awful lot of the world out.”

photo courtesy of frederica Marshall

She earned a bachelor’s of fine art degree from Miami University and a master’s degree in art education from Michigan State, but it is the lessons Marshall learned in Japan that most influence her artwork and her teaching.

“Night Blooms” by frederica Marshall “Koi” by Frederica Marshall “I love to share Japanese culture with Americans,” says Deer Isle artist Frederica Marshall. “I’ve been in both worlds.” Staff photo by James Straub

Her Oriental-style brush paintings will be on display throughout October at the Blue Hill Library’s Britton Gallery. Marshall will present a slide show and lecture titled “Angels and Demons” at the library on Friday, Oct. 7, 6 p.m. The slide show will feature Buddhist art from the temple caves of China’s Gobi Desert.

The daughter of an Army officer, Marshall was born under a crystal chandelier in General Black Jack Pershing’s library in Washington, D.C.

“That’s why I like shiny things and books,” Marshall says today.

She was one year old when her father was stationed in Korea and she went to live in Japan.

“My earliest childhood memories are of Japan,” she said. “I learned Japanese and English simultaneously.”

She returned to the United States when she was three, but went back to Japan when she was 10 and lived there until graduating from high school and leaving for college in the states.

After college she returned to Japan where she taught high school art and humanities classes for 17 years and studied the art of Oriental brush painting.

Two years ago, Marshall came to Deer Isle to lead a workshop with students she had taught in Florida who live part-time in Deer Isle. “I was here 12 days and took 13 rolls of film,” she said from her home in Deer Isle. “I called my husband and said: ‘You’ve got to see this place.’ Six months later we bought this house.”

She said Deer Isle reminds her of the island she grew up on in Japan. The islands off Deer Isle, the fishing villages and the way the mist comes inland and hovers is all “very Japanese,” she said.

“Mostly, I’m inspired by nature,” Marshall said. “That’s why I moved to Deer Isle. There is enough material here to paint the rest of my life.”

The Deer Isle landscape has provided Marshall an abundance of subject matter. The show at the Blue Hill Library, titled “Zen Brush,” features several Maine landscapes painted in traditional Oriental brush style.

The meeting of East and West also has challenged Marshall.

“They are scenes of Maine done in traditional Asian brush-painting techniques,” she said. “Because this looks like Japan, I’m taking my Asian eyes and translating the Maine landscape with the skills I learned in Japan.”

She said the tricky part is capturing what is essential to Maine.

“There are no sailing junks in Stonington,” she said, adding that it has been a challenge to learn how to paint lobster boats with the Oriental techniques that have served her well in depicting Asian scenes.

“I need to invent brush strokes to paint the Maine landscape,” she said. “That’s a challenge.”

Marshall uses several media in her artwork, including ink, watercolors, acrylics, airbrush and found art. “I pick the medium that fits the subject,” she said.

There are 800 values of gray in the ink Marshall uses, which she makes herself by grinding sticks of soot. “That’s the beauty of it, capturing all those levels of light and dark,” she said.

Many of the brushes she uses are handmade in China, some are made by her and her husband. They are made from various materials, including peacock feathers, wolf hair and horse tails. One is even made from Marshall’s own hair. The smallest brush she uses is made from a single cat whisker, which Marshall uses exclusively to paint butterfly antennae.

Though it’s commonly called rice paper, the paper Marshall paints on is actually made from mulberry bark.

“It’s like painting on Kleenex,” she said. “It’s so absorbent and fragile when it’s wet. Buddhists do it for meditation.”   

Her work often merges the ancient with the modern.

For instance, she might do a work using brush techniques and materials that are 4,000 years old and combine that with airbrush techniques to get a desired image.

“I’ll use whatever means are available to get my vision accomplished,” she said.

In Japan, Marshall studied Sumi-e (Oriental brush painting) with Grace Yen for 10 years.

The “Zen Brush” show also includes a series of paintings on Tibet. Marshall gives continued financial support to four Tibetan Buddhist monks living in India, including a percentage of sales of her artwork. She said she has pursued an interest in Tibet and its culture for the past 30 years.

She will lead a workshop in China next May 22 through June 11. The workshop titled “Landscape Painting in China” will involve traveling throughout China and studying watercolors and Oriental brush painting with five master teachers.