82-Lmcaster Farming, Saturday, July 26,1986
Chance Encounter At Moll Leeds Farm Women To Art Career
BY JOYCE BUPP
York County Correspondent
DOVER - Farm woman Ailean
Defter laughs at her secret wish.
“Someday I’d like to be in a
finger painting contest,” she
chuckles. “I figure I’ve had lots of
practice.”
And so she has. Ailean Defter is a
country artist, a creator in oils,
acrylics and pastels whose pain
tings to date number over 300.
More than half of those hang in the
homes of delighted customers.
Most of the rest are on display in
her studio-gallery, located on the
Defter’s family farm on Old
Carlisle Road. But unless they look
carefully at the sign on the
decorative windmill outside the
pole bam, casual passersby would
never suspect the wealth of talent
reflected by the paintings inside
the metal structure.
Until 12 years ago, Ailean spent
her time raising their four
children, assisting her husband,
Lome, with the farm chores, and
volunteering in church and
community activities.
That was until the day she was
shopping at a nearby mall and
spied an exhibit of tole painting by
Yorker Maxine Shaffer. Intrigued
by the artwork, Ailean asked what
tole painting was all about and
promptly requested to signup as a
student.
After two years, Mrs. Shaffer
felt she had taken her student
about as far as possible with tole
technique. While shopping for a
picture frame in Carlisle, Ailean
again spotted an artist at work,
stopped to talk, and enrolled again
in art classes.
When she asked to begin studies
under Jo Pucci, Ailean had no way
of knowing she would be with the
Vtomesfead
rfctes
Ailean and granddaughter Holly Gross blend shades of oils,
a job Holly adamantly claims is not her favorite part of an art
lesson.
Carlisle teacher for a total of eight
years, interrupted after five years
when the teacher moved for about
a year to California. During that
interim, Ailean pursued her art
studies at the York Academy of
Arts.
“I would never have thought this
would happen,” she reflects,
standing in the middle of the studio
where, last October, Ailean Defter
began her first art class as the
instructor. “It’s all due to Lome.”
Lome Detter saw the
possibilities of the farm’s
relatively new metal pole building.
Half of the building had been in use
previously by a son-in-law as an
auto body shop, with the other half
utilized foe farm storage.
For over a year, they worked at
cleaning, redesigning, and
remodeling. From high atop a
scaffold on a farm wagon, to hours
spent on his hands and knees,
Detter redid the building, from
overhead beams to carpeting.
A comer where automobiles
were once spray-painted has
become the studio area. Carefully
placed lighting prevents shadows
at any spot in the room which has
adequate space for up to six
students, plus paintings Ailean has
underway. A small, but complete,
kitchen is opposite, and the
remainder of the large building is
open for a gallery-supplies-work
area. Lofts at both ends of the
gallery add a relaxing living room
comer, and additional storage and
display.
But it is the paintings and related
decorative artwork that stars in
the innovative gallery. They cover
me broad wall, floor to ceiling,
with bright images and brilliant
color.
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One of Ailean's paintings in progress is being personalized with her client’s
specifications to include pigs, a dog and cat, his antique automobile, and even a Conrail
train.
Landscapes are numerous in the
display, many with the old bams
and outbuildings which Ailean
favors. Snowy, winter scenes hang
next to floral still lifes. Hawaiian
sunsets, European castles and
picturesque farms in the shadows
of mighty Alps are tasteful
testaments to Ailean’s travels
overseas with brush and palette in
hand.
Scattered through the studio are
clippings from magazines,
calendars, photographs, and
publications on painting, a cor
nucopia of ideas and items that
Ailean hopes to “get to” with a
paintbrush someday.
As it is now, several classes each
week and an increasing list of
commissions has her working
almost full time. Most work comes
through satisfied customers,
students and word-of-mouth.
However, a display at the down
town York restaurant Granfaloons
and a showing during May of her
paintings at the Dover library have
given Ailean’s talent further local
and newspaper exposure.
While Ailean has studied
watercolors, acrylics, and pastels,
oil paints remain her favorite
medium. -
“I like oils because they dry
slowly; you can work the colors,
and blend shadings,” she explains.
And, quite often, to get just the
right shading tones, her favorite
squirrel-hair brush is put aside,
and her fingers instead go into the
moist paint.
“My fingers are never clean,”
she confides, holding up hands
marked with tracings of color.
“And I seem to end up with paint
spots on all my clothes.”
Her best critic, Ailean claims, is
Lome, an avowed non-painter.
“He can look at a painting and
immediately spot a mistake. And
he’s finally comfortable enough
with a brush to take one in hand
and show me what needs
corrected.”
Teaching has brought a new
dimension to Ailean’s artistic
accomplishments. Her first
classes were as a leader of the
Create-A-Project, with members
of the Davidsburg 4-H Club. First
year students begin with textile
painting, generally personalizing a
favorite T-shirt or jeans. The
second year and beyond, they paint
on any item they choose.
Ailean’s studio classes are
limited to six students at a time, so
she can give individual instruction
as necessary. Students paint
whatever they choose; there are no
structured “steps” in her methods.
Her goal is to maintain a schedule
The pole building which once housed automobiles to be
repaired and repainted has become a unique art gallery for
Dover farm woman and artist Ailean Detter.
of nine classes weekly, three each
on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and
Thursdays.
Progression of her students
gives Ailean immediate positive
feedback on her techniques; and
she enjoys the pleasure novices
find in learning they, too, can
capture a mood on canvas.
“One of my students came in and
said that her husband looked at her
painting and asked her why she
was still driving a school bus,”
Ailean relates.
One class is specifically for
youngsters, ages 10 through 14.
And, all seven of Ailean and
Lome’s grandchildren are already
accomplished artists.
“If someone is around here more
than a day to visit, they’ll be
painting,” promises Ailean.
Nearly all the lovely paintings in
Ailean’s gallery are priced, except
for a few that the family has
especially requested her to keep.
“It is really hard to part with
some of them, sometimes. I’m not
always ready to give them up right
away,” confesses this artist, of her
attachment to certain paintings.
A special favorite that hangs in
the gallery is not by Ailean, but a
valued reproduction of a country
scene by famed landscape artist
Robert Wood.
The Detter’s made this “find” at
an auction, and because of the
texture of the canvas had held out
slim hopes that it might be an
original. Further investigation,
however, proved it to be a
reproduction on graphic paper.
“Robert Wood is probably my
favorite artist” Ailean says.
Several prints of his famous scenic
paintings are on hand in the
gallery for students to study for
painting detail and technique.
She’s also a fan of York artist
William Falkler.
Currier and Ives win Ailean’s
admiration, too, and she paints
reproductions of the famed
lithographs, carefully notating on
each canvas that it is a
reproduction.
Several York and Adams county
farm families proudly display
Ailean’s decorated milk cans and
rural paintings, won as grand door
prizes at dairy princess pageants.
Lome’s employer, William
Sprenkle of Spangler and Sprenkle
Feeds in York, has for many years
purchased dairy-related artwork
from Ailean, and donated it an
nually to the dairy princess
committees of the two counties.
Along with her almost full-time
professional art career, Ailean
serves as the secretary-treasurer
and membership processor of the
York County Farmers Association.
Her gallery office also does double
duty, since Ailean is the Dover
area aide to 199th District
Representative John Broujos. She
continues as a 4-H leader, and she
and Lome have been active church
leaders for many years.
The four Detter children are all
grown, and three of them are
pursuing ministerial careers. Judy
and her husband, Walter Bran
denburg, are both ministers and
teach at the Mt. Vernon Bible
College in Ohio. Sharon Gross lives
in York and is employed by the
Granfaloons restaurant. Susan and
her husband are associate pastors
in Lorraine, Ohio; and David and
his wife, Lavonna, are presently
studying for the ministry at Life
Bible College in Los Angeles, Calif.
The Detter’s also keep in touch
with a former daughter of sorts.
Masayo Matasuhama, a foreign
exchange student from Japan.
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