Longtime Sacramento City College instructor and artist Anne Gregory doesn’t force herself on her art. “I’d rather trust the drawing to speak back to me,” she says. “Little by little, the narration comes about.” For most of her career, Gregory’s sketches were studies, preludes to her powerful and large-format water-colors. But this spring at Pamela Skinner/Gwenna Howard Contemporary Art downtown, her charcoal-and-mixed-media works took center stage. At 72, the artist says she is enjoying the realignment. “It is invigorating. The drawing is more immediate,” says Gregory, who works from her studio in Oak Park. “Day to day, you just go there and see what happens.” Gregory has had a lifelong affinity for the human figure and loves integrating texture into her projects. “Whorl is the World,” one of her latest works, depicts a muscular male nude, a woman, a skeleton and several animals. The 60-by-41-inch piece is adorned with dried fauna, including a day lily petal and a sprig of Queen Anne’s lace brought back from her second home in France. Even her watercolors are multidimensional, featuring strips of fabric, plasticized rice paper or other elements—often hanging down. “I like descent,” she explains. Gregory has taught watercolor, drawing and design at City College since the early 1990s and describes her style as “tough love.”
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