Former art teacher shows his work
Jon Pugliese has a lot of time to devote to his art since his retirement in 2018. Of course, the enforced isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic really allowed him to hone his artistic talents.
Pugliese estimated he spent four hours a day painting in acrylics during the worst of the pandemic and created an estimated 60-plus paintings. Those were enough that he was able to have a show at the Butler Art Center.
“I sold 16 paintings in one night,” he said. “Oh my God, I guess I’m a painter. Now I own that.”
It was a long road to his first art show. Pugliese’s road began on a 150-acre dairy farm between Spring Church and South Bend in Armstrong County where he grew up as the second youngest of 10 children.
“I was always drawing. When you are one of 10 children at the tail end it was the only way to get any attention,” he said. “I remember I had an epiphany in eighth grade: I’m going to be an art teacher.”
Pugliese said he wasn’t that skilled as a artist then, but he had a good rapport with children. After graduating from Edinboro University in 1978, he went to work as an art teacher with the Butler Area School District.
“I absolutely loved my job. It was wonderful,” he said. “I’m not good with little kids. I can be too spontaneous and high energy. But the older kids loved it. I can’t say enough for it.”
Pugliese enjoyed helping his students open up their creative potential, helping them to become disciplined and expressive.
“My goal was to direct them to find themselves,” he said. “It got pretty philosophical. What is art? Is it beautiful, abstract? What makes it quantity instead of quality?”
With his retirement, Pugliese turned to teaching himself. He prefers working in acrylics for its immediacy as well as its forgiving nature when it comes to mistakes.
“I paint really rapidly,” Pugliese said. “I tell people it’s like my prayer, my focus and during it the whole world stops. There’s no judging. I’m willing to accept what it is.”
He said he doesn’t have a muse or wait for inspiration to strike.
“I know when a painting is coming,” he said.
But he will occasionally refine what he has painted. A painting of a woods scene was not working. He took it inside, ran it under water and scraped at the paint with his fingers. The result is more of an abstract result with scratches of color that overlay the original woodsy scene.
As for his subjects, he likes to work outside in a style called en plein air, a French term meaning out of doors and referring to the practice of painting entire finished pictures outside.
He paints the trees and plants in his backyard. He said it helps capture the essence of the scene. “Capturing the light is the ultimate goal,” he said.
“I know my plants. I know my woods. I’m a farm boy,” he said.
He paints in various styles. “In the winter, I’m more traditional, more realism. It depends on the subject that catches my eye,” he said. Lately, he’s found himself branching away from his usual nature subjects into portraiture.
His first portraits weren’t from real life, but characters he’d captured from television.
His paintings began to fill the spare bedroom he had turned into a storage space when he decided it might be time to have another art sale. Pugliese doesn’t have an online presence and relies on word of mouth to let people know of his paintings.
“I don’t do marketing yet, it’s not my thing,” he said.
Fortunately, the other activity he has taken up since his retirement provided an answer. Pugliese is a volunteer for Katie’s Kitchen, which provides free meals every Thursday at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Butler. He’s one of the cooks every week.
The new manager for Katie’s Kitchen, Justine Brown, was a former colleague of Pugliese’s at the Butler Area School District.
“Justine Brown, I used to teach with her. She’s very organized. I have great respect for her,” he said. He suggested he might be able to sell some of his paintings, and that proceeds from the show and sale will be divided among the five churches who serve community dinners in Butler .
He said Brown took that idea and expanded it until his idea of “a table with some paintings on it” turned into the Community Art Show & Sale Gala at Trinity Lutheran Church Feb. 26 and 27 featuring 35 of his paintings.
Brown, a former family and consumer science teacher at Butler High School, said, “Jon said he wanted to sell a few paintings. But I felt the more people see the paintings, the more he will sell. A show can really sow the public what the churches can do and what the church dinners are.”
Brown said the upcoming gala “is important for all the churches. It’s a good thing for Butler and all the churches.”
Pugliese said 30% of the proceeds from the sale of his art will be divided among the five churches who serve community dinners in Butler.
“I have become committed to this work as well,” he said.
He’s happy to be doing it. He likens the work he does with the other volunteers to work on the dairy farm in his youth.
“Everybody does a part, everyone is equally important, whether you are a cook or a packer. It’s not about the individual. It’s about being part of a greater whole,” Pugliese said.
