by Christa D. Weber

When first confronted with the art of Tova Speter, one immediately senses a congruence with nature. There is something suggestive in Speter’s broad rivers of flashy color and cool shades of grey, but nothing so overt that it forces one to rush to a conclusion about meaning, technique, or perspective. Without a guiding placard, her paintings are like playful puzzles that leave viewers asking, “Why does this feel so familiar?”

“I use color to offer a glimpse into the amazing natural beauty that may otherwise remain unseen,” Speter said.

“I hope to share the idea that everything has an inherent beauty that will shine through when the time is taken to look at it from a new perspective,” she said.

The viewer’s sense of the familiar, and the answer to the puzzle, is wood. While artists throughout history have used wood as their canvas, none have sought to glorify it as Speter has.

Her unique style utilizes the natural graining patterns that characterize the individual piece of wood and serve as her guide. The composition of her paintings is determined by the wood itself and the shapes, lines, and flow that serve as a loose template, begging to be beautified.

Speter has been a part of Vernon Street Studios for two years, and will be exhibiting there in this year’s Somerville Open Studios, she said.
Her work has been hanged in the Diesel Café in Davis Square, the Nave Gallery, and is currently exhibiting at the Maven Gallery, which is also in Davis Square, she said.

Speter said she began working with wood after completing a master’s degree in art therapy. It was then that her paintings tended to embrace the representational style and she painted with an eye toward perfection, she said.

“Going through that program and focusing on the artistic process rather than just the product was a very powerful experience,” she said. “I shifted dramatically from my original style.”

She stumbled upon her first wooden canvas leaning against a wall outside of the apartment that doubled as her studio and, after exploring it as a inspiration, found she wanted to do more. One aspect of the motivation behind the style shift was simple economics, she said.

“It was a matter of money and supplies,” said Speter.

“I was a struggling student and had no money to buy my canvasses, so I thought this was a way I could be economical in my pursuit of art. I liked the idea of recycling as well as the idea that there is beauty in the natural world,” she said.

Her work truly is a form of recycling in that she paints exclusively on found or freely gifted wood using normal house paints, which are often left over from her commissioned murals.

This in no way detracts from her work and, in fact, lends it a refreshing originality, both in content and form. A large part of the appeal of Speter’s body of work is that no two Speter paintings are alike.

One highlight of her CV is the switchbox at Washington and Beacon streets, painted for the Somerville Arts Council’s 1997 Switchbox project, which mimics the way she marries paint to wood, she said.

The Maven exhibition, which features a selection of vibrant pieces hung singularly or in groupings, as well as functional art.

“Table #8,” which shares many aesthetic features with modern abstract landscapes, can be, for those with a keen sense of observation, interpreted as a growth chart for Speter’s painting.

Earlier works, like the triptych “Beginning,” a symphony of colors that form themselves into twisted, haunting faces, and demonstrate the innate, unplanned symmetry of nature, seem to be less grounded than later pieces like “Untitled #61,”another triptych.

The latter boasts subtle differences in the colored patterns that blend into a unified piece, particularly with the strategically-placed bare knots. \

“My work has always been an exploration of color and color relationships,” said Speter.

“I use both very bright colors and very dark colors, and recently started working in black, white, and grey. As for that, I started in this style using colors, but it was only recently that I was having a terrible day, and didn’t feel like using color at all. The results were exciting,” she said.

The exhibition includes two colorless works, both finished only this year.
“BWG #3” is a single rectangle of wood that has been left half bare, evoking feelings of exposure – that of an animal, only partially camouflaged against the dry grasses of high summer.

The triptych “BWG #1” gives an impression of living, breathing mountain ranges. Each wing of the triptych includes a single exposed knot that forms the iris in an eternal eye.

Speter said she equates her work with the wood with her work as an art therapist with at-risk children and teenagers.

“I find there is a lot of similarity in the idea of taking a piece of wood that someone else has thought to throw away and to bring out what is naturally there in order to end up with something beautiful and amazing,” she said.

“A lot of people don’t take a second look a the kids I work with, but I know there is a lot of beauty there. My goal is to take their natural talents and coax them out,” she said.

Her current projects include not only a selection of works based on the four elements of the natural world, but also a stint as artist in residency at John F. Kennedy  Elementary School on Elm Street, where she is assisting the children of Eithna Sweeney’s class, she said.

With her students, Speter said she is leading the design and execution of a mural in the pedestrian tunnel connected Beacon Street and Somerville Avenue.

“The idea has been that I engage the kids in the entire artistic process from start to finish from ideas to design to the completed painting,”said Speter.

“They’ve been working really hard. I really love getting them involved in the arts,” she said.

In the future, Speter said she will be the subject of a solo exhibition at the CRC Gallery in Portland, Maine, and she hopes to do more commissioned work using pieces of wood that people want made into an individual piece of artwork or to create made-to-order pieces in terms of color.

Until then, she asks that anyone in the community who wants to support the arts and finds themselves with some extra scrap wood contact her at TovaSpeter@hotmail.com.