Article
THE UNSTILL LIFE OF Like so many painters of her generation, Susan Schary once dipped her brushes into a palette of sorrow. The search for inspiration, she remembers, often went no further than the mirror. These days, though, the 61-year-old artist produces still lifes of porcelain figures, brilliant flowers or delicate lace parasols. Has Schary, like Picasso, moved from her blue period to her rose period? Not exactly. The Mount Airy native has spent the last seven years drawing courtroom scenes for television networks and newspapers. But when she's done with accused murderers and rapists for the day, Schary turns to sweeter images for her paintings. "I've become a little jaded, a little suspect of everybody", Schary says. "That's why I paint dolls, fairies, beautiful things. Anything to get me away from all the crime and the pain. I'm through with agony". These days, Schary gets her dose of depressing reality from the trials of Arthur Bomar, who is charged with raping and killing college athlete Aimee Willard, and of Thomas Capano, charged with killing his mistress, Anne Marie Fahey, and dumping her body of the coast of New Jersey. Armed with high-powered binoculars, pastels and charcoal, Schary shares her ringside seat with television viewers and newspaper readers increasingly enamored of all things judicial. Often creating five or six pictures during a single courtroom session, Schary says her art is as much about speed as it is about aesthetics. "There have been times I've had to draw people who appeared in the court for less than two minutes", Schary says. She's committed to paper Mumia Abu-Jamal, Ramona Africa, "Little Nicky" Scarfo and John E. duPont. "I loved Ramona Africa's hearings, there was so much variety of fashion and hair", Schary says. "I did some of my best drawings during that time." Her subjects rarely pose. But Schary says, duPont once stared at her for 20 minutes in court, more than enough time to create a handsome image of the bearded defendant. "His lawyer ended up buying that one for him", she says. Among the occupational hazards she lists is having to draw a vast number of lawyers. "They all practically look the same" in their dark suits and wing tips, Schary says. "The Capano case is really bad. Even the defendant is a lawyer."
|
