Don Burgess: Combining hot rods and watercolors

50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield
Celebrating arts and culture in our community

Featured in The Springfield Beacon (November 21, 2007)


Don Burgess: Combining hot rods and watercolors

ByAustin Berger
For the Beacon

“I’m a car guy … they’ve fascinated me since the day I was able to see them.” says Don Burgess. With early memories of racing his ’36 Ford Coupe (his first car) through the streets of Medford and the surrounding Rogue Valley, it’s easy to understand the fascination -- a fascination that comprises the bulk of this 72-year Northwest native’s painting portfolio.

With a tenacity to plan his realistic watercolors with diligence, Don has found a joyous lifelong hobby which, like his hobby for cars, he finds endless time for tuning up to keep things running smoothly.

Inspiration to Begin: Don answers in the language of "maybes". No turning point or single defining moment exists for him. Art has been a part of his life from a very early age. As he puts it, it “probably” started with his parent’s best friend, an art teacher at a local private school. He fondly remembers the opportunities’ he was granted in grade school; a local program selected him for an arts workshop at the University of Washington. “They would go around the grade schools, and they would take 50 kids from every school. I went two years in a row” says Don, who fondly remembers the freedom he experienced, being allowed to use any media they choose and paint whatever they wished. “They never told you ‘here, you must paint this.’”

Soon enough though, paints were traded in for petrol, as he had entered his hot-rod phase. And soon enough, he had a long respectable career in retail. For decades, art was put on the back burner, until “probably” 25 years ago. “I was probably at a car show and I got inspired.” says Don. No matter how he got back into the fray, he has done so with a full-heart, taking an active role in the activities of the Emerald Art Center, organizing gallery functions and workshops.

Mentors: Don remembers words of wisdom from an artist from Eastern Oregon: “Watercolor is the hardest to learn, but the easiest to do after you’ve learned it." "I kind of agreed with that," he says. While the art teachers of his childhood appear mostly forgotten, he credits two watercolorists as his mentors: Jeanne Hammond Elliot, and workshop leader and fellow Rogue Valley artist, Judy Morris. Both of these teachers helped teach him an invaluable lesson for all watercolor artists and perhaps all artists in general: plan your drawing before even picking up a brush. “A lot of artists will start painting, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work,” says Don. “With this, you can the image out ahead of time, and then you can say this will work.”

Art and Quality of Life: “I find it fascinating to take a white piece of paper and just have something appear on it.” says Don. With numerous workshops and events at the gallery, which in turn feeds his hobby, art has certainly livened up his retirement. Never one to waste his days watching daytime TV, Don enjoys taking life by the wheel and going for a nice Sunday cruise. Fully restored, with a creme paint job and a gold interior, his ’67 Chevelle Super Sport has been the winner in the second largest all-Chevelle car show two years in a row for “best ’67 Chevelle” (as well as 45 other trophies). Being the road tripper that he is, he makes an annual pilgrimage out to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, a proverbial Mecca for automotive enthusiasts. The trip combines his two favorite subjects to paint: hot rods and Red Rock desert.

His legacy as an artist: Don admits unapologetically that he has not put much thought into his legacy as an artist, and he couldn’t be happier. “I paint things that please me. Cars and deserts. I paint for myself, it’s not a business to me.” He brings along his prints to the Salt Flats, selling them to kindred spirits coming as far away as Texas, Missouri, Maine, and New Zealand. He also plans on producing a small book as well as a calendar for his most recent batch of prints from his 50th anniversary road trip with his wife.

Don also thinks that art is a great thing to get your kids into at an early age, which can blossom into a lifelong hobby. “Eventually your body will tell you ‘I don’t want to work anymore.’” he says. But like his Chevelle, art has the ability, provided a few tune-ups, to last through the ages.

"No Glare Rusty" by Don Burgess

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About The Artist:

Birthplace: Seattle

Media of choice: Watercolor

Favorite place to do art: Home studio

Favorite subjects to paint: Hot Rods and Desert Landscapes (Red Rock Country)

Arts Organizations: Emerald Art Center (Member - Board of Directors); Watercolor Society of Oregon
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All art images and photos of the art are copyright of the artist.



"Red Roadster" by Don Burgess



"Storm Over the Steens" by Don Burgess


"Jacksonville Pit Stop" by Don Burgess

Lorraine Austin: Resilient spirit

50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield
Celebrating arts and culture in our community

Featured in The Springfield Beacon (November 14, 2007)


Lorraine Austin: A living testament to the strength of the human spirit.

By Austin Berger
For the Beacon

The word “resilient” may not do enough to describe Lorraine Austin. But you will be hard pressed to find another word to describe this 33-year-old Eugene resident.

An old-schooler at heart, Lorraine doesn’t tell her age. Whatever it may be, she seems to have youth and vigor in abundance, making a constant triumph in the face of daunting circumstances.

Inspiration to begin: Lorraine found her muse back East, working as a secretary in her 20’s. Her boss seemed to have an attention span that left a lot to be desired, wandering off at the slightest action happening outside his window. “Whenever I had to take down a letter for him, it would take so long…so I drew eyes,” says Lorraine.

Her doodles soon became a full-blown hobby, trading in eye sketches for oil paintings.
Oils turned to watercolors when she moved out to Lane County in the mid ‘70s, having bartered watercolor lessons in exchange for organ lessons.

Lorraine says she enjoys the unpredictability of watercolors, in where “mistakes” dry up and can turn into something beautiful. A longtime member, Lorraine fondly remembers the Emerald Art Center back at its tinier, humbler beginnings. “It was so cozy, so small…It was like a home away from home.”

Ten years ago, her art, as well as the rest of her suffered a devastating setback. Getting ready for work, she suffered an ischemic stroke on the left side of her brain. “I couldn’t talk. I understood what I said, but nobody else could… I was like a baby.”

Lorraine says that the stroke left her “laughing,” and instead of being “morbid” about her situation, she approached it with a light heart. She has spent the last ten years steadily making an astonishing recovery. She threw away her cane and eventually learned how to walk on her own, despite a fall that shattered her confidence for a time a few years back. After that, she fought tooth and nail to get her drivers license back. Soon enough, she was back to painting watercolors with the same diligence as she once before, if not better.

Mentors: The stroke did take an irreversible toll on Lorraine. Although she regained many of the functions of the right side of her body, she lost function of her drawing hand. “One day I was in physical therapy, and they gave me a paint set…I thought it was all over for me.”

Barbara Nechis, a renowned watercolor painter and instructor, encouraged her to do something she never thought possible – to paint with her left hand. Five to six years later, she’s finally felt comfortable in doing watercolors again, all with her left hand. She also credits Rebecca Mann, another renowned watercolor artist for her loose style of beauty, a style Lorraine aspires to.

Art and Quality of Life: Lorraine's art has left her quite busy. After painting watercolors for the past twenty years, she has been sharing her knowledge for the past one and a half years, teaching watercolor classes at both the Emerald Art Center and the River Road Parks and Recreation Center. “I’ve met so many people…it’s been great,” she said.

Although finding her niche in watercolors, Lorraine is also pursuing different styles such as "negative" painting where you essentially paint everything, but the thing that you are painting. She also plans on selling her individually hand-painted cards, humorously titled “trash” -- but they could be anything but.

Her legacy as an artist: Lorraine's legacy, in a sense, has already been made by adding her own fully copyrighted 3-color wheel system. By utilizing the basic red, blue and yellow, she is able to generate palettes for certain tones: delicate palette, standard palette, opaque palette, etc.

She’d like future artists to plan ahead as far as their finances. “It’ll cost you a fortune,” Lorraine warns, but the benefits are great.

Lorraine Austin's legacy, if anything, is by her own life experience -- a living testament to the strength of the human body and spirit.

Prints of Lorraine’s Austin work, and soon her handmade cards, are for sale in the Emerald Art Center Gift Shop.

"Before" by Lorraine Austin

"After" by Lorraine Austin

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About the Artist:

Hometown: Malden, Mass.

Media of Choice: Watercolors

Favorite Place to do art: At home

Favorite Subjects to paint: Flowers

Arts Organizations: Emerald Art Center (member/teacher)

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Bonnie Sandland: Serendipitous Talent for Nature Painting

50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield
Celebrating arts and culture in our community

Featured in The Springfield Beacon (November 7, 2007)


Bonnie Sandland: Jasper native stumbled upon a talent she never knew she had.

By Austin Berger
For the Beacon

It would seem that an ostrich doesn’t take kindly to having his or her picture taken. “I took its picture, and then he tried to eat my camera,” says Bonnie Sandland regarding her most recent piece, “Balderdash,” inspired by an Ostrich at the Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon. One could guess it comes with the territory, and it’s definitely worth it.

With her photorealistic shots of nature, this 60-year old Jasper native may appear like a seasoned veteran; but looks can deceiving. Truth be told, her talent is something of a serendipitous affair.

Inspiration to begin: Bonnie's inspiration didn’t derive so much from a desire to draw, but of what she had a desire to draw. She’s always had a loving relationship with nature. Growing up in California, she found a serene appreciation for it on the fishing trips she took with her dad in the reservoirs near Modesto. The car trips alone always had her looking out the window, looking for the bird on a telephone pole. Proverbially speaking, she still looks for that bird, having her weekly scenic drive to church in Blue River serving as a constant well for inspiration.

Despite her longtime love of nature, and a longstanding dexterity with sewing and stitching, Bonnie never picked up a paintbrush until 2001. Paul, her husband of 35 years, had a voucher from the Emerald Art Center for a day long oil painting class. But, having to take a business trip, Bonnie went instead.

“Seven hours later, I had a painting.” says Bonnie, whose newfound talent took the notice of the teacher, Shirley Reade. “Shirley came up to me and asked me how long I’ve been painting. I told her ‘for seven hours.’… I had a talent that I didn’t even know I had.”

Mentors: Being exclusively a nature painter, Bonnie regards Terry Isaac, a world-renowned nature painter from the Northwest as a mentor with great reverence. This kindred spirit of sorts was teaching classes in Salem. Bonnie and Shirley Reade, whom Bonnie also credits as a mentor from the beginning, would often trek up the I-5 corridor for 65 miles to catch his class. “Oh, we’d pick his brain,” says Bonnie laughingly. “We didn’t go to learn to draw. We went there to be taught.” She also credits her husband for being her “resident critic,” and thus helping her make a better picture.

Art and Quality of life: When one learns how to be trained in anything, the logic he or she possesses can either become a weight that anchors them in one place or wings that take them anywhere. In Bonnie’s case, it appears to be a latter, with art showing her that within the serenity of nature, there is also complexity. “You see everything differently: the birds flying by, the colors, textures, faces…It’s almost like you took the blinders off and became aware of your surroundings.”

In addition to her newfound perspective, Bonnie also gets to hone her baking skills about twice a month. Having earned the affectionate title of “cookie lady,” she bakes six dozen chocolate chip, peanut butter, and raisin cookies; all of which find their way to the trays and bowls of the Emerald Art Center Gallery.

Her legacy as an artist: Like many people involved in the Emerald Art Center, and perhaps artists in general, family comes first to Bonnie. Having five children and 14 grandchildren, she wants every one of them to have something of hers. For everyone else, she simply hopes that her paintings will do a good enough job in helping the viewer appreciate nature as much as she does. If people viewing her art could learn one thing, in her own words is this: “It’s a beautiful world we live in.”

You can see Bonnie Sandland’s paintings at the Willamalane Adult Activity Center at 215 West C St. in Springfield. Also, beginning Nov. 28, 2007, her art will be on display at the Oregon Community Credit Union in Thurston.

"Balderdash" by Bonnie Sandland

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About the Artist:

Birthplace: Modesto, California

Favorite type of media: Acrylics

Favorite subjects: Animals and landscapes (anything that’s nature)

Arts organizations: Emerald Art Center

Awards: Various ribbons at Mayor's Art Show in Springfield; 2nd place 2004 North Light Book Club award.

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Marion Mitchell: Finding Art & Love Together

50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield
Celebrating arts and culture in our community

Featured in The Springfield Beacon (October 31, 2007)


Marion Mitchell: Finding art and love the second time around

By Austin Berger
For the Beacon

It appears that on occasion, cupid will trade in his bow-and-arrow for something a little more practical. For Marion Mitchell, 74, of Springfield, it just so happened to be a paintbrush. In so doing, it confirms that age-old adage: it’s never too late for love.

Inspiration to begin: Like many people, art began as “something to do,” for Marion -- something to make friends with. In her earlier years, her main concern was dealing with something more serious than a muse. “I was born with cerebral palsy … the biggest thing for me was to learn how to walk.”

As a child, she was often shuttled between her home in Idaho to the Shriner’s Hospital in Portland. Eventually, Marion's family moved out to Eugene. While growing up, a local art teacher, Naomi Nelson, approached her and invited her to one of her classes. “I told her I couldn’t draw,” says Marion, but Nelson told her to come to her class anyway. Even today, her oil paintings from that time (which go back at least 35 years) still line her living room.

Busy with family, she put the oil painting down. One thing came up after the other, and soon there was no time at all for it. For 35 years, her painting faded into the background, uncertain of its reemergence.

Mentors: Fast forward to 2002. Marion’s first husband had just died. “I got very lonely…so I started going to the senior center.” Again, it was “something to do.” There, among other people, she met Bruce Mitchell, a local art teacher from the Emerald Art Center.

Although Marion regards him as her mentor, originally he didn’t teach her art, he taught her pinochle. That led, in turn, to Bruce doing some yard work for her; which led in turn to him installing fans in her house; which finally led him to seeing her oil paintings in her living room. He took notice of her skill and invited her to come to the gallery. That sewed the seeds for the rediscovering of her art, as well as something more.

At the art center, Bruce served as a guide for breaking her in to the world of acrylics and watercolors. “She’s a little bit more advanced in her ability to pick up on techniques than my other students.” he says. “Certain things she’s not receptive to, but others, she becomes a ball of fire.”

Art and Quality of life: Marion found two beginnings in two ways by following Bruce back to the art center. She rediscovered art, as well as found a new husband. “I married my art teacher,” says Marion with a hearty laugh. While painting a rose at the gallery, with Bruce teaching her, “I thought to myself “oh oh, I think I’m in love with him.” They married nearly three years ago. “When you get to be as old as we are, that’s a big decision to make.”

Her legacy as an artist: Marion is not too concerned, given that even at 74, she has just begun in a way. She looks perfectly contented taking lessons from her husband and painting. One thing, however, is that she makes it a point to never sell her originals, only prints. “Painting comes hard to me,” admits Marion, so she keeps all of her originals. If they fare like her oil paintings from 35 years ago, they will surely be around for a very long time.

"Roses" by Marion Mitchell

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About The Artist

Hometown: Pender, Nebraska

Media of Choice: Acrylics and Watercolors

Arts Education: Various Art Classes

Favorite place to do art: Emerald Art Center

Awards: Cash Awards from Mayor's Arts shows

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Janelle McMahon: Gemini sensibilities lend intrigue

50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield
Celebrating arts and culture in our community

Featured in The Springfield Beacon (October 24, 2007)


Janelle McMahon: Gemini sensibilities lend intrigue

By Austin Berger
For the Beacon

“Faces are interesting,” says Janelle McMahon (pronounced Mack-Mahan). “You can tell a lot from them. Good or bad vibes…and they come in all shapes.”

Her love of faces is evident right past the threshold of the door; masks from all over the world adorn their walls. It may be due in fact that she has two faces herself, in the astrological sense. She’s a Gemini.

The astrological sign of the twins, Janelle's Gemini sensibilities may also contribute to her love of the number two, for many things come in pairs at the McMahon house. Two Hemingway Estate cats (as distinguished by their number of toes), two Porsches, two spindles, two magazine articles of her work in the magazine for the National Knitters guild (you heard right, knitters have a guild.); as well as a two-step stairway that leads to her studio. “Two steps up. Two steps down,” she jokes when talking about her commute from her studio to her kiln, which is in the garage.

Her Gemini sensibilities may also lend intrigue towards the dichotomous characteristics of her favorite medium -- glass: a medium to which the 55-year-old Springfield native has been able to fashion into something so straightforward as beads and plates, or to the intricacy of knitted fabric.

Inspiration to begin: “It was a slow grow,” says McMahon when asked about her immersion into the art world. She’s tried her hand at many things, working in health institutions and running her own bookkeeping secretarial service, teaching, and being a mother. She picked up art again when her friend enticed her to come to a knitting class. “We were redoing the house, I had no job…it immediately clicked.” Although she can paint, knit, as well as sculpt, she found her true love in glass -- first in beads, saying that it has “ a warmth, yet a coldness” to it, not to mention it’s ability to catch energy reflected off of it’s surface.

Mentors: Some people would credit Picasso or Da Vinci, or some type of artists in their respective field. McMahon credits her troop leader. Before working with glass, Janelle was a knitter, something she attributes to her long stay in the Girl Scouts, and rightly attributes her longtime troop leader Dottie Venchura as an inspiration. Also, the lion to her twins, she also credits her husband and best friend Michael. And Leone Hanson, who Janelle ranked as a second mother in her life, was a person who would pull no punches about her opinion of what she did. “She was one of those people who’d tell me if I was screwing up…she was the kind of people you could call on.”

Art and the quality of life: Any random horoscope will describe a Gemini as a flighty type, whose dual personality leaves them prone to wandering, lacking a center. Whether this is true or not for people born in late May or early June is anyone’s guess. What is known is that Janelle became a moon of sorts to the art world, in that she found that it could be her center to revolve around. “I learned all different types of art. All different types of people, their reactions to art…it opened that world I didn’t have.”

Art serves as Janelle’s anchor, her center; something she acquired when her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. “I was always running to the coast…I needed to feel and create. I needed to be able to have something work.” In this trying time she found her soul being fed through her glass work. After winning a blue ribbon for one of her earliest glass works, “it was something where I could say: “Okay, this works.”

Her legacy as an artist: If there is one thing that Janelle loves most, it would be her family. Most of her family still remains in around the Eugene-Springfield area. Sooner or later, she plans on giving everyone of her family members a piece of her work. “I want them to have something of mine. It’s part of who I am.” As for the rest of her work, which ranges from jewelry to sushi sets to vases, whoever they go to, she expects some wear and tear. “I make functional art. It’s usable. I want it used.”

You can find her glass works and jewelry for sale at the Emerald Art Center and at the New Zone Gallery in Eugene.

"The Flower" by Janelle McMahon

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About The Artist

Hometown: Springfield, Oregon

Media of choice: Glass

Favorite place to do art: Her downstairs studio (a.k.a. “the eclectic dive”)

Awards: Several prizes -- Mayor's Art Shows in Springfield and Eugene

Favorite subjects: None (penchant for masks however)

Hobbies: Porsche Club

Art Organizations: Emerald Art Center, Springfield Arts Commission, New Zone Artists Collective
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Scott Wylie: Of two minds

50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield
Celebrating arts and culture in our community

Featured in The Springfield Beacon (October 17, 2007)


Scott Wylie: Of two minds

By Austin Berger
For the Beacon

Some call it symbiosis, or yin and yang, or balance. Anyway you cut it, it’s the making of distinct elements working together. It’s a task that gets added to someone working in the field of designing architecture. It’s doubly daunting to not only pull something out of the creative mists and put it to paper or canvas, but to also make it work in the real world, and give it function. Furthermore, one must balance the function to meet the individual’s needs. It requires a very humanistic touch.

From the Science Walk at the University of Oregon, to the brick work of the corner of Broadway and Willamette, to a house on High Street in Eugene, to parts of Bruce Berg’s photography studio on D Street, Scott Wylie, 61, of Springfield, pulls off the balancing act between form and function with great diligence.

Inspiration to begin:

“I always loved to draw,” says Wylie. A skill given to him by his parents; a father who found an artistic outlet through special effects lighting as a lighting engineer, and his aesthete mother who saw to it that he visited all the museums that the Boston area had to offer.

Growing up in an area which blended architecture from the modern times to the 1700’s, New England proved a great place to be inspired by architecture, prompting Scott to go to Rhode Island, and later to Rome to study. “It really had a powerful influence on my outlook on art and design from that point on…I had ideas awakening.”

With ideas still awakened after his year in Rome, he followed an old professor to the University of Oregon, a part of the country he often romanticized. Scott remembers riding in the back of a pickup truck around the Fall Creek area and how the air suddenly changed from dry firs that surrounded the outside of the Willamette wilderness. “The air went moist and sweet. Palpable as going into a curtain,” he said. After that, he became “very Oregonian.”

Up until 1998, he did all of his sketches by hand, until he was “liberated” by an Auto CAD class given to him by his wife as a gift. “It did everything I expected it to do.” Now the seemingly impossibly long designs, every individual brick and rock can be laid by a digital representation.

Mentors: Scoot Wylie's mentors in crafting his skill are also masters at the balancing act of different concepts. He cites Leonardo da Vinci, a man of science as well as a man of art, along with Pablo Picasso, who traversed between the figurative and the abstract. As for designers, he credits Frank Lloyd Wright, whose organic approach balanced the needs of the client and the natural environment surrounding the home. He also credits the Greene Brothers, whose bungalow style blended, along with architecture and landscape, the Arts and Crafts Movement with Asian design.

Art and quality of life: The contribution of the arts to quality of life has been great to Wylie. He says that he found his center in the art world, but there’s something more to it. It is within art itself that one can take multiple contradicting objects, theories, concepts, and make them work together. It is the art that is, as Wylie puts it, “the great unifier.” He feels a connection to other artists. “I like to think of them as my kin.” Oddly enough, art also turned him into a bit of a football fan. “It’s like an art … I love watching it being done really well. I love watching athletes enjoying it.”

His Legacy as an artist: Scott's legacy has been left in stone and brick for many of his works. While he wishes his legacy to be specific and clear, “something that somebody can take with them,” he wants his legacy to be something, in a word -- mathematical. Wylie knows a bit about math: graphical expressions of 4th and 5th and 6th dimensions, algorithms, the Fibonacci sequence, all sorts of things. Most importantly, he wishes that the next generation will see it in a “fractal” kind of way, that even at the very farthest and the very closest points, there’s something happening. “There's always something new to see.”

"Science Walk" by Scott Wylie

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About The Artist

Hometown: Danvers, Mass.

Favorite place to do art: Anywhere, for one can find seeds of inspiration “in the most Spartan of places.”

Favorite medium: “Anything I can draw with.”

Favorite Subjects: No job too big, no job too small.

Arts Organizations: Emerald Art Center; Springfield Arts Commission.

Awards: Six public commissions.
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DeVon Tanton: Nourishing the Inner Child

50 Artists: 50 Years of Art in Springfield
Celebrating arts and culture in our community

Featured in the Springfield Beacon (October 10, 2007)


DeVon Tanton
Nourishing the Inner Child

By Austin Berger
For the Beacon

Her work makes one think what would happen if Norman Rockwell moved out to Eastern Oregon during his prime; a plethora of cowboys, snuck kisses, curious kids, animals, and images of the Old West. Showcasing a Bull Elk at this years Mayor’s Art Show at the Emerald Art Center, DeVon Tanton of Jasper has honed her portraiture skills to precision with a near lackadaisical drive in the best way possible.

Inspiration to Begin

DeVon is the first to admit that her mind is the farthest thing from a business mindset. She’s won awards, but can’t really name any. She has mentors but has trouble remembering their names. Her answer to her art is simply this: “I love to draw.”

It’s reasonable to argue that DeVon's inclinations to art are encoded somewhere in her DNA; lying somewhere in the autonomous nervous system somewhere near the areas which tell her to breathe, and to keep a heartbeat, and all the things that our brain handles for us and never really give thought to.

DeVon's art skills came naturally as a child. No defining moment, no turning point; it simply was, and still simply is. Ever the conservationist, many of her earlier drawings as a child were done on ripped up brown paper bags from the grocery store. Many resulted from her anger because whenever she would do something good in her eyes she would later wish she had done it on appropriate drawing paper. For the Nevada native, it appears her art doesn’t require much conscious thought -- a practice that becomes so natural and constant to her as brushing teeth comes to others.

Important Mentors

The similarities between the nostalgia showcased in her work and Rockwell is no coincidence. Coming out of the era that he depicted, DeVon always had an affinity for Norman. “He made stories out of his pictures and he depicted humans when things were simple.” She also notes his love of painting children, a favorite of hers as well.

Value of Art in life

DeVon's art is her therapy, a muse born out of dream world imagery that sometimes borders on the macabre. It is her core, her release, her treat and her pastime.

“I used to have these dreams…where I hid a tiny baby in a cigar box.” These dreams went on for years, where she would come back to the box to find the baby dead and shriveled. One day she told a doctor about this dream. “He told me that the child was my talent and that I was hiding my talent.” She then went “off the deep end” as she put it, into the realm of portraiture, and in doing so fully exposed her “child” and kept the dreams at bay, so long as she was doing art.

Her artist’s legacy

Even at 69 she still finds herself the student, seeking to perfect her skills as a portrait artist, wishing to leave her mark with them. “I want to learn to do portraits (of people) so well that people are waiting for them to come alive. I want to put their soul into them.” Everything from life’s joys to its hardships, are written on a face, according to DeVon. She intends to capture it all.

"Bull Elk" By DeVon Tanton

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About The Artist

Birthplace: Elko, Nevada

Arts Education: Fashion Design, Modeling, various classes at Emerald Art Center

Media of choice: Oils, China Paints, Pastels, Acrylics

Favorite place to do art: Her work station in her living room, which has a view of the Willamette River and the Pleasant Hill area.

Favorite subjects to paint: Portraits, especially children

Arts organizations: Emerald Art Center

Currently Showing: Mayors Art Show (October, 2007) at Emerald Art Center