March 1, 2003 Issue
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I must be
the most fortunate of all the artists that reside here in the Pacific Northwest.
I have been blessed with the ability to paint and draw, and have the good
sense to be married to a super fine computer guy, who guides my career
and loves every minute of it! When I began to paint seriously in
the early 1970's, my husband, Ed, saw to it that I was able to attend the
art instruction classes that enabled me to advance in the direction I wanted
to go. He made sure that there were materials and inspiration at
hand, and to further my learning, sent me to the Oregon coast to study
with seascape instructors, who gave workshops at the edge of the sea.
When, in 1989, he was convinced that my career was ready to "take-off",
he quit his job with the State of Washington to become my full time business
manager. Together we did the "shows", printed limited editions,
and placed my work on consignment in galleries and gift shops across the
country. When technology caught up to me, we entered the world-wide-web.
We have indeed looked back, but we never stop moving forward. Both
of us are excited about the future, and keep taking advantage of all that
the 21st century has to offer. So, expect new things from here.
The best is yet to be!
Next Issue: It's All About People
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The Industrial Landscape
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| Warehouses. Towers.
Girders. Steam rising in the early dawn. The industrial landscape
fascinates me. I grew up on a farm in north-central Wisconsin.
My world was a landscape of trees, fields and forests. The closest
I came to industry as a girl was the cheese factory, in town ten miles
from home, where my mother worked for a short period of time. Even
then, I did not seem to pay a particular attention to the whole theme.
But somehow, the wail of a far-off train caught my ear. The plume
from a distant factory's smoke stack rose on thin autumn air, to enchant
the dreamer in me. I began to listen for the hum of traffic borne on chill,
quiet winter evenings. Trucks. Airplanes. Trains.
The hustle of manufacturing twenty-four hours a day. My Dad was temporarily
drawn away to work in a factory in Milwaukee, hundreds of miles from home.
On weekends he would regale us with stories of the huge clanking machines
that turned out goods for the insatiable consumer.
"Trucks. Airplanes.
Trains. The hustle of manufacturing twenty- four hours a day"
After graduation from high school, I went to
work in the nearest large city, Wausau, Wisconsin. (Home of Employers
Mutual Insurance Co.). There I saw huge railroad yards and
heard the clatter of trains that still intrigues me to this day.
I had my first train ride. It was a rollicking, reverberating experience
that left me with a life-long love of those mechanical beasts. The
airport was in close proximity to the apartment house where I lived.
Day and night, jets took off and landed with a roar, shaking the very foundations
of the old Victorian. I still thrill to the sound of a jet plane
revving up at a terminal, whether I am aboard, or sending someone off,
or meeting an arriving flight. |
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Today I live in suburban
Olympia, Washington.. Interstate 5 runs east and west a mere mile
from my home. Long-haul trucks pound the route nearly continually.
Some roar, some whine, some whirr as they snake along the curvy highway
that ushers them from mighty city to small community and back again, carrying
the lifeblood of American commerce. On long automobile trips,
I have amused myself by counting the number of them in a short period of
time. I have reached the conclusion that they are inummerable!
"Interstate 5 runs east and west
a mere mile from my home"
It would seem to be, for an artist, a natural inclination to paint those
things which captivate ones imagination. Still, it was many years
before I began to explore the industrial climate of this great nation.
Since taking up the media of gouache and pastel, I have eased out of the
groove I was in (seascapes). I delight in capturing the steam from
the stacks of a lumbering mill in the northwest, and the sinuous rails
laid out before a train in California. There is the unique mood of
a rain drenced factory in the heart of the Oregon hills. My goal
is to again visit the huge industrial complex of the great cities of the
Midwest. Think of it! Mile upon mile of belching factories
in the heartbeat of the country; the rhythmical music of the trains
leafing out on silvery branches of steel. The industrial landscape
is every bit as entrancing to the heart of an artist as any field, mountain
or stream.
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