from the KEY WEST ART & HISTORICAL SOCIETY 281 FRONT STREET, KEY WEST, FL 33040 295-6616 Fax: 295-6649
Attention: News editors, news directors, features editors and programming directors. Please use the following item as a news story, public service announcement or community event. Pix available. For immediate release, Nov. 29, 2004.
Not many contemporary artists practice the fine art of creating using just a pencil on paper like Theodore Haykal. But in Haykal's skilled hands the pencil is as expressive as the painter's color-filled brush. His gray-toned shadows are as precise and subtle as the strokes of those who work with watercolors, acrylics and oils. An exhibition of Haykal's black and white Pencil Portraiture of Key West opens Dec. 9 in the Bumpus Gallery of the Key West Museum of Art & History at the Custom House where visitors will be treated to his impressions of members of the Key West Community. Although his medium is less common in the modern art world, it comes from a firm tradition and one that underlies much contemporary art. Back in the early days of print, in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th, before television and before color photography graced every newspaper's front page, the press, and many book publishers, employed line artists to draw illustrations so precise they resembled actual photos. Some of these illustrators-Western artist Frederic Remington was one of them- had the advantage of being able to go beyond visual reality in their work. One example was the wild illustrations in Hearst's New York Journal showing the sinking of the U.S. S. Maine battleship in Havana Harbor in 1898, an incident that probably instigated the Spanish-American War. Such is the case with Ted Haykal's portraits, in which he strives to not only portray individual facial characteristics but "to capture life itself by drawing the subject's spirit into each piece. "Portraiture is the hardest form of realism to capture and I've made it my greatest challenge," he says. "I am satisfied not when it looks like the subject, but when it feels like the subject has come alive." In reality Haykal, 53, is a Key West "snow artist," who has been coming to the island annually since 1987, working and interacting with the community. The Custom House exhibition consists of a body of works "depicting people I have met over the course of my time in Key West," he says. "Some of them were close personal friends, others are patrons who became close friends, or are familiar faces I have seen on a regular basis. "The closeness of the community of Key West draws my attention in so many ways. To me these faces represent the many stories of my time well-spent here." During the warmer months Haykal lives in Peaks Island, Maine a short ferry ride from the Portland, the state's largest city. About 20 years ago, he bought an old general store that overlooks the sunsets on Casco Bay and the Diamond Islands and serves as his home and studio. There he built look-out towers and meditation rooms that he has opened as a community learning center called "The Center for Sensational Living," where he teaches performance and art to "kids from age 2 to 102." A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Haykal earned degrees in studio art, art education, and art history with a minor in psychology. His main area of study was printmaking "with a lean to lithography and drawing," he says. His artistic talents have enabled him to support himself for more than three decades, he says. "My life is devoted to understanding God and truths which have always directed my path," he says." I look forward to every day and each new lesson I am to discover. And I strive for peace and harmony." The exhibition, part of the Key West Art & Historical Society's Artists-In Season series, runs though Jan. 28. It will open with an artist's reception Dec. 9 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Custom House with hors d'oeuvres donated by Flagler's Restaurant at the Wyndham Casa Marina Resort and Beach House. Following the reception attendees who show their invitation or membership cards at Antonia's, Nicola Seafood or Flagler's will have 15 percent of their restaurant bill donated to the Society's education programs.
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