Capturing a Poppy: One Springfield Artist's Race Against Time

When most artist create still life portraits, they are afford the luxury of working at a leisurely pace. Their subjects, by definition, don't move.

However, when Kat Block  created her award-winning portrait of a poppy, she had to work under unique time constraints. Her model, a late blooming poppy flower, was dying and she had to act fast to capture them.

"That picture was interesting," Block told Patch. "I have private students, and one of them mentioned his father was growing poppies."

The student brought her two flowers. One was already dead; the other just barely hanging on (coincidentally, poppies are often used as a symbol for death and sleep). Block set to work right away to capture the barely surviving plant's image on canvas.

"I was in the zone and I knew [the poppy] wasn't going to last," she said. It was a rare race of an artist against time that the artist won. "The flower was dying when I started. When I was done, the flower was completely dead."

Block, who has lived in Springfield since 1998, said she was happy with the final product and the speed of its creation.

"Paintings are like giving birth," she said. "It takes as long as it takes."

There is an argument, of course, that the painting could have been done at a more leisurely pace had she photographed the poppy. That argument doesn't convince Block, though.

"When you see a photograph, you don't have an emotional connection," Block said.

Block's search for emotional connections has been fruitful. In addition to the visibility she is afforded from receiving numerous awards from New Jersey arts organizations, her art went national earlier this year when one of her paintings was featured in the Robert Pattinson film "Remember Me."

She said that working from photographs limits an artist, as the image has already been reduced to a two dimensional image.

Good art, she said, hinges on the artist's ability to see things as they truly are. It's a lesson that Block, an art instructor at duCret in Plainfield, the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey in Summit and in her own private classes, strives to impart on her students.

"I want to be able to teach students how to see things," Block said.

In her private instruction and her coursework, Block teaches students of all ages.  No matter the age of the student, Block's goal is always the same; she wants to bring out the student's innate abilities for expression while instructing them on the techniques they need to execute their personal vision.

"One thing can't be sacrificed for the other," she said.