Local Artist Unveils Exhibition at Taylor Memorial Library

Over the years at Centenary, students may have noticed a range of paintings, photographs, and posters while walking through Taylor Memorial Library. The exhibits are always on display in the lobby, but most students are probably unaware of the artists and the meaning behind them. 

For the next few months, students can discover happenstantial art and the beauty in the time-eroded nature of rural New Jersey in the Art of Happenstance.

Professional photographer and painter Leslie Ross Stephens unveiled her exhibit, Art of Happenstance, at Taylor Memorial Library on Wednesday, Dec. 18, which runs until Wednesday, Mar. 12. The exhibit consists of art that is much more than meets the eye. At first glance, the paintings depict beaches and woodlands, but they are so much more. They are natural areas of moss and rust she comes across on her daily hikes along the Delaware River and local canals. 

With her photography skills, Stephens makes the otherwise mundane into a work of art. Also on display are her photographs of the West Village in New York City, a part of her “Blue City” series. 

Her exhibits have also been featured in her local Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ and she has won dozens of art awards across the tri-state area over the last four decades. Stephens has also published two volumes of transformative photography books, entitled “The Art of Happenstance.” 

Stephens’s art can also be found on her Instagram page @leslierossstephens, tagged #artofhappenstance. 

Stephens was gracious enough to answer questions during the opening of her exhibit. 

Has art always been your passion? Did you go to school for art? 

Art has always been my passion, mostly by virtue of the fact that my mother was an artist. From the get-go, I was drawing and trying to do what she was doing. As far as going to school, I went to Douglass (Rutgers University Women’s College) and it was not a good time for art. The studio courses were very uninspiring. 

I had a chance to get the hell out and go to Aspen, Colorado, and live there for a couple of ski seasons. I also took a trip on a houseboat in Cashmere, a backpacking trip starting in Rome and going across Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East to places you’d never go. I feel as though my artist's eye was turned on in a way it wasn’t when I was going to school. 

I never went back [to complete my degree], because it was not meaningful to me. I just kept painting. I got married, had kids and have a business with my husband. I got sidetracked, but I always kept at the art, always exhibiting. 

What artists have inspired you throughout your career?

John Singer Sargent, most of all. I just love him. Monet, of course, and Wyeth.

Over the last 40 years, you've won 35 awards across New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Has your art and style changed over the years? Are your inspirations still the same?

It’s all a process of evolution as everything is. The photography, “The Art of Happenstance,” is something relatively new and exciting to me, but it all feeds in together somehow with the painting. It’s probably my favorite thing– photography. 

Where are your favorite spots to photograph? 

I walk along the Delaware River and the canals and that is just a constant source of inspiration. I go to Alexandria Park in Milford, NJ, which is just a paved path through farmland. 

There’s something amazing about the way the asphalt has cracked and been patched and the way the light hits it. It’s just incredible. I’m always taking pictures. 

What's your preferred device for photography? Do you always carry a camera or use your cell phone? 

It’s my phone; [that’s] all I use. I haven’t touched my camera in years. This is just the best with the High Dynamic Range (HDR). It gives you the sky and the land. 

In the old days, I used to have to bracket and take a picture that was going to be good for the lens and take another picture of the sky because the camera could not deal with both, but this thing does. What a miraculous tool!

Have you had any other careers other than being an artist?

My husband and I had a very high end concrete swimming pool design business that we built from scratch, which was quite successful. Our last pool was for the President of the New York Stock Exchange up in Far Hills. 

How do you think art is important to our society?

I think art nourishes us. I think we need art. 

What advice do you have for young artists?

Follow your dreams. Do what you love. I don’t know what to say about trying to make a living from it, though. That’s a tough go these days. 

Even if you can’t, keep going with what is talking to you, what is pulling you to it. Don’t give up. 

Just like with me, I am at a point in my life where I am about to pursue it full time, so I do. It’s been somewhat backburnered over the years and, now, it’s full speed ahead. 

Is there anything you'd like to discuss we haven't already?

Something that I didn’t mention is that, when this exhibit comes down, I will stage a big painting exhibition down in Lambertville at Canal Studios, Luminary Coffee. It’s a coffee roaster. The guy, although he works full-time in the city, has two coffee shops. The one in Lambertville is cavernous; it’s huge. It’s a beautiful space, so I’m looking forward to showing my paintings down there when this is over. That’s exciting. I’m working towards that in the meantime.

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“The creation of ‘art’ is, for me, the only means of full engagement of the miraculous faculty of sight. The process of rendering the subjective reality in terms of composition and color requires the most intense and unfettered attention. It demands of the artist all the best that can be summoned and applied to the task,” reads Stephens’ artist statement. “And the marvelous truth is that the more one looks, the more one sees! Reward enough. A painter's sense of success at capturing even the slightest essence of his or her experience of the living moment is ample reason to press on. Finally, conveying to the viewer a glimmer of that streaming inner life is magic.”