Each week on 5 Minutes With, our host Howard Wolpoff talks with buzz worthy people about buzz worthy things. This week on The Buzz, Howard talks with Kristin Cronic of Fem Art Gallery.
“I am a fine art painter born and raised in Jacksonville, FL. I left after high school to serve in the Navy, studying Naval Architecture at the U.S. Naval Academy and serving 6 years driving ships and managing ship maintenance contracts as an engineer. (A logical path for an artist, huh? ☺) I chose the Navy over art school, but always intended to come back to art when the time was right.
I am currently exploring in my work the idea of transition, and what stays the same during such change. The past decade of my life has been all about that- leaving the comfort of Ortega to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, getting married, deploying a couple of times, travelling the world, returning to my hometown, having two children, becoming a civilian… I also see it in my young children- they are constantly in periods of transition as their mental and physical abilities grow.
Throughout this, I’ve taken an interest in the things that root me to a specific place. The St. John’s River, those ancient live oaks…. They were such strong motifs of my childhood and they were there, seemingly the same, when I came back, acting as an anchor, or possibly a yardstick. My art often explores these motifs in the context of transition… for example, the way the light moves around the solid oaks, the movement of the water in the river, or the fleeting skies against the horizon.
I have a couple of bodies of work exploring these ideas, including ongoing project where I do a twenty minute painting of the sky outside my house over the course of my youngest baby’s first year. It has been so interesting to relate the rapidly changing nature of the sky to his development during this first year.” – Kristin Cronic
Buzz TV Host Howard Wolpoff is a marketing executive with over 25 years of experience helping hundreds of businesses create profitable solutions to drive sales, attract and maintain customers, and build a solid corporate brand. He has helped launch three businesses: Chelsea Piers Sports and Entertainment, the Brooklyn Cyclones minor league baseball team and GridironNow.com, the premier site for SEC football and currently serves as the Vice President of Client Integration at Client Focused Media. Born and raised in New York City, Howard moved to Jacksonville in 2007. He is married with three children and earned his MBA in Marketing from Fordham University. www.howardwolpoff.com.
