My First Semi-Solo Exhibit - Preparations

I am so excited for my first semi-solo exhibit coming up in less than a week! As a member of SYNC Gallery in Denver, Colorado, I will have a month-long combined exhibit with another member artist (hence “semi-solo”), and Shinee B Creation and I will get to go first! We are doing all the last-minute preparations getting ready for Beyond the Horizon, with an opening reception on Friday, January 17, 2025 from 6pm - 9pm.

Since I use oil paint, which takes a long time to dry, I set my cut-off date for creating new artwork a month ago, and I’m so glad that I did. In the past couple of weeks, I have been super busy with finishing edges, making frames, attaching hanging hardware, creating labels and wall tags, distributing my postcard announcement, and sharing updates on social media. Along with all that, my phone died, my computer died, and I was sick - all of which is, or soon will be, better. But if I was also trying to create new pieces to include in the exhibit, I would have been overwhelmed.

Tomorrow, we get to start hanging our work in the gallery. I can’t wait to see it all come together, and I look forward to sharing my work as a collection with friends, old and new, that come by to see it.

Celebrating New Beginnings and Anniversaries this Fall

This has been such a busy fall and I have so much to tell you!

First, I am thrilled to anounce that I will be a new member of Sync Gallery in the Denver Arts District on Santa Fe Dr in 2025. My artwork will be on display all year long with the member’s space in the back of the gallery. I will also have a month-long semi-solo exhibit in which I will, for the first time ever, be able to show my art as a collection! I can’t wait! Stay tuned for details.

Second, I will be a featured artist during the upcoming Denver Arts Week at 32nd Ave Books, Toys, and Gifts in the Highlands neighborthood of Denver on Friday, November 8th from 5-6:30pm. I am looking forward to talking about all things art and books - come by and say hi! Denver Arts Week runs Nov 1 - 10 this year and is a great opportunity to experience art in Denver.

Finally, on a personal note, my husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary earlier this month with a vacation to California. We spent three days on a short cruise from L.A. to Ensenada, then spent 24 hours on Catalina Island, two nights in Solvang, California, and finished our trip with friends near Pismo Beach. It was such a fun, beautiful, and memorable way to celebrate this milestone in our marriage.

Kenya

This past summer, my family and I had the great fortune to travel to Kenya! We spent two weeks visiting friends while exploring the capitol, Nairobi, and venturing beyond to the Great Rift Valley and the Maasai Mara National Reserve. We hiked the dormant volcano Mt Longonot, climbed Fischers Tower in Hells Gate National Park, boated across Lake Naivasha to Crescent Island where we walked among the wildlife living there, went on a 3-day safari in the Maasai Mara with Sentinel Mara Camp, explored Nairobi National Park and the Karura Forest Reserve, frisbee golfed with giraffes, ate at some wonderful restaurants (Hero Restaurant in Nairobi, Jiko Restaurant at the Tribe Hotel in Nairobi, Lazybones Restaurant at Camp Carnelley’s on Lake Naivasha, River Cafe in the Karura Forest in Nairobi), drove Formula One simulators, toured and tasted tea at the Kiambethu Tea Farm, visited museums and art galleries and malls and markets, and marveled at all the ways Kenya surprised and impressed us.

Nearly every day that we were in Kenya was incredible and beautiful and interesting. Part of that is just the nature of traveling somewhere new. But a big part was because of Kenya itself. The vistas were breathtaking, the wildlife abundant, the weather was perfect. In some ways, it felt like Kenya was way ahead of America: plastic bags are not allowed into the country, everyone used the same online app (like a venmo or zelle) to pay for absolutely everything (from a bottle of water at a small stall to medicine at the pharmacy to hiring a driver for the day to admission into a park or museum), and our one visit to urgent care when one of us got sick from something we ate was fast and thorough and cheap (less than an hour and under $30 for two doctor consultations, a lab culture, and prescriptions). In some ways, too, Kenya felt very familiar - very similar to life in the United States: the clothes they wore, city buildings, billboards advertising cleaning products and appliances and companies and politicians, menu items at restaurants, how grocery stores are organized, their newspapers, their cell phones. But in many ways, it was very different: the crazy driving, the lack of sidewalks, herding cattle and donkeys and sheep along the side of roads and through villages, using donkeys to pull carts, motorcycles overloaded with people and cargo, the use of corrugated metal and rough bricks and branches as building materials for small buildings and fences, the lack of lawns and gardens around many buildings and along roads. Kenya felt like a world of contrasts: traditional vs modern, local vs global, the have’s and the have-not’s. With the exchange rate most definitely in our favor, we were fortunate to be in the “have” category, and we ate extremely well, hired drivers on several outings (like an all-day uber), and were able to spend the money required to enter the parks and nature reserves and museums. We were very much aware that not everyone shared our experiences, and we had many conversations with our friends and Kenyan’s we met about life in Kenya.

While I am not a photographer and happily take full advantage of auto-mode on my camera (and sometimes even mess that up), I am pretty excited about many of my wildlife photos. The amazing diversity and abundance of wildlife in Kenya provided so many moments of inspiration, and I have started to include African wildlife in my paintings.

There were so many special moments while watching wildlife in Kenya, but one stands out for me as being extra amazing: the wildebeest migratory crossing of the Mara River:

We started this trip knowing it would be a once in a lifetime experience, but ended it with talk about “when we come back” because it was hard to imagine not experiencing it again. If you ever get the chance to visit Kenya, I highly recommend you do!

Happy Earth Day 2024

If there is one issue that I feel most strongly about, it is what we are doing to this planet. Climate change affects so many parts of our lives, from pollinators and the food we eat, to extreme weather events and the economy and equality, to mass extinctions of animals and mass migrations of people and wars. But the good news is we can do something about it. We can all take steps in our homes and communities to make small changes, and we can support the people who come up with the big plans to make the big changes. It will take a (global) village.

Much of my artwork addresses the impact of global warming on wildlife in the western US. As water becomes scarcer, many species are threatened by drought, changing food sources, and habitat loss, while some, like the coyote, prosper as they learn to adapt. I paint the wildlife of the west while symbolically representing these changes through altered color, line, and shape. By doing this, I am acknowledging that their world, and their chances of survival, are changing as we alter the landscapes and climate of our shared planet.

Visting My Childhood Home

I have been back and forth between Colorado and Missouri so many times over the past 16 months to help my family as my parents experience a variety of health problems. Many moments have been heartbreaking, and some have been beautiful, and I am grateful to have been able to be there for them all. These photos are a glimpse of peaceful moments I found during evening walks along the long driveway and fields of my childhood home in rural Missouri.

Arriving at sunset last June, my family's front field blurs together as we approach the driveway.

Our dogs, reunited, enjoy "cousin" time on a walk along the driveway between grass and clover fields that will be cut for hay in a few weeks time.

Clover fields provide a more nutritious meal for cattle, and are beautiful in summer.

Winter sunset over the front field as seen from the gate and cattle guard.

Winter sky over fields of gently rolling hills and trees that grow along the lower spaces where the tractors that cut hay in the summer don't reach.

My dog Callisto enjoys the excitement of farm-dog life on our late-afternoon walk.

A heavy winter fog in the front field makes the nearby trees along the creek stand out.

A cow's perspective as I stand in the field and look back at the driveway and unfenced spaces.

Callisto enjoys the farm sights, sounds, and smells from the frozen pond in the front field.

Winter sunset between the trees along the creek my sister and I would walk as children.

Painting Skulls

Usually, my paintings come about as a result of my experiences and whims, following inspiration wherever it comes. And at any given time, I typically have a mental list of at least a dozen paintings that I want to create. But occasionally I will see a call for artwork for an upcoming exhibit (called a Call For Entry, or CFE) at a gallery that will spark my interest, and then I will create something with that exhibit in mind. This happened recently when the Memento Mori Gallery in the 40 West Arts District in the Lakewood neighborhood of Denver posted a CFE for their “Skulls and Bones” exhibit celebrating their one-year anniversary. I immediately thought about the skulls found, or hanging, at my parents’ home in rural Missouri. So, on my last visit home, I photographed the skulls of a steer and a deer. Back in my studio in Colorado, these paintings were a lot of fun to create. I added color throughout both, shifting one toward white/silver and another toward a warmer yellow/gold. I’m very happy with how they turned out and am delighted that they both were accepted into the exhibit at Memento Mori, which runs Oct 6-28, 2023. Gallery hours are Tues - Sat, 12-7pm.

I Once Lived Where You Once Lived, a 20”x20” oil on canvas painting of a deer skull.

I Once Lived Near Where You Once Lived was based on a deer skull found on my parents’ farm that now rests on their back deck, witness to their moments of pause and companionship. When choosing the canvas to use for this painting, I used one in which I had carved flowers in the paint of an abandoned earlier painting, now providing subtle texture below the skull, an echo perhaps of the past for both deer and artist.

The Yorick on Our Wall, a 16”x20” oil on canvas painting of a steer.

The Yorick On Our Wall is based on a longhorn skull that hangs on the wall of my parents’ home. I often wonder why it is there… I think they just enjoy its presence. Maybe, too, it is a reassurance that, although we all share the same ultimate fate as living beings, we don’t completely disappear when we go. That because we existed, we impacted the world in some (big or small) way, and our presence continues in that change and the memories and experiences of the living.

Summer Experiences

After a VERY busy summer break, my son reluctantly returned to middle school (as an 8th grader!), and I happily returned (skipping, jumping, practically running) to my studio. The first day I spent most of my time sketching bison with different tools: marker, pen, pencil, oil pastel - just getting warmed up again. It felt so good to not have anywhere to go, nothing to plan or coordinate or schedule except wherever my creativity took me.

My summer experiences - some adventerous, some tame, and some serious - have stayed with me, though. And while I am eager to continue in my art where I left off last June (I feel like I still have a lot to say (in paint) with painting Colorado wildlife), I have so much I want to share and create based on this summer, too. I can’t wait to show you!

Various sketches of bison

Sunset over my family’s land as we arrived for a visit in June.

Greetings from Kenya, July 2023.