CAprrAL TES, October 25, 1989
Perspective on art:
"Shy" artist expresses himself
Jennifer Cahill
Capital Times Staff
Many times I have heard artists
lecture and wondered how can such a shy
person paint so expressively.
Do they have to be a paradox?
Wednesday, October 19, the Gallery
Lounge hosted artist and teacher Fredric
C. Haag for a slide presentation of his
work followed by a question and answer
period. I found him to be as colorful and
open as his works.
"It was very representative of him,
he was a very free spirit." said Ed Palek,
a finance student who attended the
lecture.
"My paintings tend to be
autobiographical," Haag explained. "In
the sense that my paintings follow my
life and what I come in contact with day
to day."
"Almost every work is based on
memory, direct observation or
drawings," he said.
The freedom and openness of his
forms depend on his emotional state
while painting. But all his paintings are
in the context of realism."l never felt
comfortable moving into abstraction."
Haag explained.
Also, the artist paints lifesize
influence to him because because he
worked well with color and realistic
image.
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During the question and answer
period, art instructor Linda Ross pointed
out that Haag is "very prolific."
images on 5'5" to 6'6" foot canvases.
Ultimately, his goal is to produce
honests works of his feelings of beauty
and pleasure.
During the slide show he said that his
style is a see-saw balance between "order
and disorder, the rational and the
disrational."
His slide show was an analogy of his
works but he filled in the story behind
the art.
In May 1984 he graduated from The
Phiadelphia Collage of Art, and in
September 1984 he went to State
College to study for his Masters of Fine
Art and work as a teaching assistant. He
is currently teaching art at York College.
At first he said that his work seemed
to stiffen
."I think it was the overall
conservative nature of State College," he
said. Soon he did a series of studio
arrangement that were were loosely
painted,animated stilifes.
Haag said that Larry Rivers,
Bonnard and Farefield Porter were strong
j o i n the
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LEISURE
Look into
By Christopher Burns
Capital Times Staff
The audience was hysterical. But to
the people who were hypnotized, the
rabbit, cat, elephant, mouse, and horse
were real.
At Astonishing Neal's hypnotism and
ESP show Oct. 21, an audience of
approximately 150 members of the Penn
State Harrisburg community were treated
to one of the more entertaining shows
on campus to date.
Neal put five members of the
audience into a deep hypnotic sleep, then
asked them to imagine an animal that
they would see at a zoo or farm. What
ensued was hilarious.
Neal suggested that the animals were
trying to escape, and the participants
would have to catch them and bring
them back to the stage. If you can
imagine a baby elephant dragging
someone around the a room while the
person is holding on to its tail you
know why the audience was laughing.
Another person chased an invisible
mouse, which she usually found on
someones head. Back and forth she went
while a man was busy trying to catch
his horse.
"That is the part of the show I enjoy
the most," Neal said in an interview after
the show. "No one reacts in the same
way, so I go with the flow."
He explained, "This is what is known
as a positive hallucination. A person
imagines something to be there that
really isn't."
Neal later convinced the same people
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these eyes
that he was invisible, and the worst
ghost they had ever seen. With this
suggestion firmly planted in their minds,
the hallucinations of a floating
microphone and an evil spirit chasing
them made the hypnotic pawns scatter
like mobil homes in a tornado.
"With negative hallucinations, a
person's brain will block out the image
of what ever a hypnotist suggests," Neal
said. "The important point to remember
here is that a person can not be
hypnotized if they are not willing. If
there is the slightest bit of skepticism,
the hypnosis will not work."
When asked about skeptics, Neal
replied, "I don't try to convince skeptics.
They will always believe there is some
sort of trick or slight of hand with what
I do."
At the start of the show, Neal had
asked the audience to reserve any
skepticism and try to enjoy what was
happening around them.
Some of the other amazing feats Neal
accomplished included bending nails in
other people's hands, distorting keys that
were in pockets, and describing what a
person in the audience had written down
on paper while being completely blind
folded with silver dollars and four layers
of tape.
Neal has been criss crossing the
country for the past 49 days doing his
show at 47 different colleges and
universities.
"I learned a long time ago that there.
are two important things to life," he
said. "First, have fun and do what you
enjoy doing; second, don't hurt another
human being."
In addition to maintaining a very
busy performance schedule, The
Astonishing Neal is the founder of the
Neal Institute of Clinical Hypnosis
located in Lehighton, PA. There are a
number of services the institute has to
offer and information can be obtained by
calling 1-215-377-6325.
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