Passion for art on display at Youngblood Art Studio

At Youngblood Art Studio in The Plains, Lilla Ohrstrom’s passion for art is a community affair.

The studio and gallery owner not only uses the space to create her own work, but also teaches classes and exhibits other artists.

“I really believe in the importance of community,” she said. “I like to go out into the world and do my own work and then come back to this community and share those experiences.”

A Fauquier native, Ohrstrom found her calling as an artist at an early age.

“I feel in love with clay in kindergarten,” she said. “When they asked ‘What do you want to do when you grow up?’ I always said I wanted to be an artist.”

Ohrstrom pursued her passion, earning a degree in sculpture from Skidmore College University Without Walls, after which she studied at Parsons School of Design in Paris, working closely with American artist Cyril Heck while in France.

Among her noted studies, she also apprenticed with well-known sculptor Felix deWeldon, creator of the Iwo Jima memorial in Washington, D.C.

While Ohrstrom sculpts using materials such as plaster, bronze, and wood, her favorite medium is still clay. The malleable nature of the material, as well as its penchant for surprise, offers her the physical and visual interaction she feels are important to her artistic process.

When Ohrstrom returned to The Plains in 1996, she rented studio space at another gallery in town until discovering her present location was for sale.

“My father brought this building to my attention,” she said. “He thought it would be a great studio space.”

Once the studio of noted ironsmith Nol Putnam, the airy, two-story building easily holds Ohrstrom’s studio and gallery space. “I feel very honored to have his space,” she said.

She believes her occupancy continues the vision of the late Arthur W. “Nick” Arundel, former Times Community Media publisher, who built the building now housing her studio and was a driving force behind the revitalization of town.

“He had a vision to have artisans in The Plains,” she said.

At Youngblood Art Studio, Ohrstrom offers classes to those interested in art, particularly figurative sculpture and pottery. Her love of teaching, which began with her own children, reaches the community at a variety of ages and levels.

“It [started] as a nice way of engaging [my children] in what I was doing,” she said. “I discovered along the way that I also really enjoy teaching adults.”

Ohrstrom loves energy other people’s creativity brings to her studio and began hosting exhibits three years ago as another way to energize and connect with the community.

“I wanted to do it to encourage new artists, but I’m not at all adverse to showing the work of artists who are well known,” she said.

Her first new artist exhibit showcased the work of Charley Westbrook, whose paintings Ohrstrom described as expressionistic impressions. Although every painting sold, Ohrstrom said it wasn’t about selling the works. “We put on the show to have a place to see all the work together,” she said. “That’s the spirit in which I try to run this place ... to provide a space where people could try something new and see what it looks like all hung together.”

Friends say Ohrstrom’s support for amateur and professional artists alike is refreshing.

“She’s a hub for the art world in The Plains, where artists can be accepted and displayed and encouraged,” Westbrook said.

Most recently, Ohrstrom hosted an exhibit of children’s art in conjunction with the town’s A Day in The Plains celebration.

“One of the most impressive things was the diversity of where the children came from,” she said of the public, private, home schooled, and special-needs students whose art comprised the exhibit.

The next exhibit to open at Youngblood Art Studio will display the work of Ohrstrom’s father, Charles T. Matheson, whose original watercolors from the book “Hunting Sketches: On the Run” document a year of hunting with the Orange County Hounds.

“It shows his passion for a sport he has loved his whole life and has been deeply involved in … [and] a deep observation and participation,” she said. “If you take the time to sit there and sketch it, you’re living in the present in a very significant way.”

She hopes those who attend take away the love of the hunt countryside and the passion for community embodied in her father’s work.

“She really encourages the inner artist in all,” said Bill Couzens, a long-time friend of Ohrstrom. “She’s an enterprising , out-of-the-box thinker.”

Between her father’s exhibit and an oil painting display opening in December, Ohrstrom anticipates an intensive “work burst” ahead for her own projects.

“I keep a lot of balls in the air, and I can do it all, just not at the same time,” she said. Between family commitments and the gallery, it can be difficult to keep up with her own art.

“I love having uninterrupted time,” she said. “If I could be in there every day, I would.”

She plans to be in the studio regularly following the opening of her father’s exhibit, to work, as well as to enable visitors to view the gallery beyond the exhibit’s reception next week.

“I don’t stop doing something in the arts, it’s just not always the same thing,” she said. “I’ll see where it takes me.”

For more information on Ohrstrom’s art, or upcoming gallery exhibits at Youngblood Art Studio, visit http://www.lillaohrstrom.com