Art of the West digital magazine
Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/32473
supportive of her desire to succeed in the art world and demonstrated his commitment to her blossoming career by taking care of the couple’s two young sons while she sold her work at local outdoor art shows on the weekends. “I was selling small paintings and selling well,” she recalls. “I got huge compliments about my work.” When her sons were in high school, Anderson decided to stop focusing on painting small watercol- ors and take a chance on a new artis- tic venture. She began to make huge backdrops for high school theater performances. “I went from small watercolors to backdrops,” she says. “I did it because I love the theater. It was really fun.” While she was developing a reputation for painting backdrops, Anderson was asked to paint murals for several residential and business clients, including Barth & Dreyfuss in New York City. One client even transported Anderson by private plane to State College, Pennsylvania, for a mural project. The subjects of the murals were usually flowers, beach scenes, or tall ships. Painting murals was lucrative but also time-consuming. When that business slowed down in the late ‘90s, Anderson shifted her energy to marketing her paintings to gal- leries. In 2000 she took her port- folio to galleries on the East Coast and in Colorado and was success- ful in getting representation for her work. She also resumed selling her work at outdoor shows. During one of those shows in Connecticut, she was told that well-known painter Richard Schmid had purchased one of her small watercolor paintings of pansies. “I had heard of him,” Anderson says of Schmid. “The following year, Richard did a demo at that same art show. I wasn’t sure if I should go up to him, introduce myself, and tell him that he bought one of my paint- ings.” Her desire to meet Schmid outweighed her nervousness, and Anderson approached him after he had finished his demonstration. “He was so gracious to me,” she Elk at Rocky Mountain National Park, oil, 16˝ by 10˝ “As evening was coming, I blocked in this painting and took lots of elk photos, as they were heading towards their feeding area. At home, I chose the elk I wanted from my photos, keeping design and a natural feeling in mind, and completed the painting.” 44 ART of the WEST • May/June 2011 says. “He invited me to come to Vermont and paint with a new group he had formed called the Putney Painters.” Schmid and his wife, Nancy Guzik, had formed the group