The Epsten Gallery at Village Shalom is presenting “A Creative Journey: the Art of Lois Tosh,” exhibiting Tosh’s artistic body of work.
Tosh, now 96 years old and a resident at Village Shalom, is a self-taught artist. She dabbled with art during her youth, married life with her husband, Paul Tosh, Sr., and motherhood. During her and her husband’s retirement, they traveled across the country in an Airstream trailer, and Tosh began to focus on art as they encountered myriad views and landscapes.
Much of Tosh’s art is inspired by the locations and vistas that were part of her and her husband’s travels. Having visited all 50 of the United States, a large segment of her art consists of watercolor cards and postcards to her family, especially her children, which, along with the written messages, capture locales and document her experiences. Most of her work during these travels was watercolor, pen-and-ink or a combination of the two. She also made many larger watercolor and acrylic paintings of her surroundings during her travels.
Tosh later showed a fascination with wildflowers, still-lifes of flowers and “portraits” of birds, often created with a combination of ink drawing and watercolor. She has done more than 300+ different cards in her career, with reproductions sent to many as greeting, thank-you and birthday cards, often finding their way onto walls as framed pieces.
Early on during their long term excursion, Tosh learned the craft of dry-brush painting on ceramic pieces while in Lewiston, Idaho. With her husband’s help to prepare the greenware pieces, Tosh honed this style of craft and painting. While much of this work was done while on the road, they eventually settled in Tucson, Arizona, and many of her ceramic pieces were sold in shops and galleries in Tucson.
Though Tosh continues to create art, this show can be considered a retrospective. The show is representative of her entire career, including watercolor and acrylic paintings, pastels, pen-and-ink, a representative display of watercolor cards sent to her family, a montage of her ceramic pieces, and high-resolution prints of her ink and watercolor cards. The exhibit continues through June 16.
