Jane R. Denison

I first met Dale when I was a student in his Master Class at the Denver Art Students League. I had the privilege of being one of his students for several years. A Master Class means that the artist already knows how to paint but wants individual guidance from an instructor. His class was held in two rooms and there was always a waiting list to get in. You had to sign up months in advance for his class. In the Art Students League Exhibit of the Students of Dale Chisman it was very obvious that each student was allowed to maintain and develop his/her own style of painting.

Dale had the uncanny ability to reach students where they were in their development, see their potential, and nurture this creativity in his own good humored manner. He had a vast knowledge of the works of other artists around the world and would recommend to a student just the right ones to study and research to better enhance the direction of their own styles.  You would not only learn from his comments to you but from his conversations with other students as well. You learned to better critique your own work.

From time to time his students had the rare privilege of attending gallery or museum tours with him and listening to his explanations of contemporary art. I told him that some day I hoped to be able to understand his style of painting. He explained this would be an appreciation of what he called “High Art.”  When I heard him expound with delight the nuances of a huge painting in the Museum of Contemporary Art I began to understand where he was coming from. He saw the entire canvas as an exciting arena full of colors, tension, harmony, shapes, relationships, layers, etc. all playing off each other in endless activity.  Each shape in the painting was appreciated for itself. By the very nature of the boundaries of a canvas a painting can seem restricted. A contemporary abstract painting has a sense of expanding forever because of shapes and colors that seem to extend beyond the canvas. This was a style used by Dale in all of his painting. I learned to try not to have shapes look like they represented some thing. This would stop the eye from being entertained by the presence of what the entire painting contained.

Dale most enjoyed painting on very large canvasses and working on several at the same time in his large studio. When he would talk about his own work you had the sense that he was entering into the canvas and surrounding himself with the ideas he was painting.  He gave each piece a lot of “thinking” time as well as painting time. He no longer did sketches of what he wanted to paint but let the painting itself develop as he worked on it. It was in constant flux until he felt it was a finished piece. Sometimes you could see an under painting of shapes he had covered over as the painting developed. If there happened to be a drip or a dribble of paint he would leave it alone. I learned that these techniques showed the hand of the artist, was done with purpose and gave the painting depth.

Last year Dale came with me to The Great Western Art Gallery to see my paintings and check out the gallery. He was very complementary of what he saw. He was especially impressed with the location and how well the art work was displayed.