Sobre el Artista

Did you ever wonder what makes an artist tick? Every artist is probably ticking in their own unique way. As for me, I see Wow moments and Aha moments that are beautiful, peaceful, truthful, and satisfying. I remember these and I want to paint them. They make sense. There are other things involved inside me, like color. I have always loved colors. Maybe because my mother pointed them out. Then there is rhythm. Music and dance are at the top for me. There is also scenery. That involves our ranch, which I love. The cattle, the pastures, the river, the hills, the family; it's all connected. Ultimately I create out of love. Love for something I see or instinctively know is beautiful. A wonder I can never completely and accurately depict, while there is a striving to keep trying and to perfect. Maybe you believe God and love are the same thing. To me they are the force behind my Wow and Aha moments. And that is what drives me to paint. My background is straight forward. I grew up in Hillsboro, Oregon. My father was a lawyer, my mother stayed home with my sister and me. My mother always kept art supplies in front of us and encouraged us to draw. We learned to play the piano and to dance. I had an art teacher in high school who taught me to focus and to lose myself in a painting. He matted my paintings, displayed them, and got a Hallmark art scholarship for me. When I went to college, my father thought I should have a better paying career than art would deliver, so I went to the University of Arizona and majored in Business Economics. That was all good, but being on the water ballet team was more fun, the sun on the Arizona mountains impressive, the bright Mexican colors an artist in Tucson used, daring. I met my husband at my sister's wedding at the end of my third year in college. He was big, strong and handsome. We married and had five children. I didn't paint a whole lot, while the children were young, but I sure did enjoy raising them. In 1978 we bought a cattle ranch in Fields, Oregon. The scenery was spectacular. I began painting again. The children gave me a camera. I began to photograph. Postcards and greeting cards later became a result. In 1987 I had a horse accident on our ranch while moving some cattle. So my focus had to change. I couldn't do all the things I did before, but I could do a lot of things, and one of them was art. I started first with pen and ink, then water color crayons, followed by painting with acrylics and a brush. My past came back to haunt me in a good way. I remembered the colors and the rhythms, and landscapes...the big sky's, the cherished trees in a wide open field, the hills and mountains. I began to see them in a thankful and dancing, rhythmic light. I have over the years shown and sold photographs, cards, postcards, paintings and a small book, through stores and galleries in Boise, Idaho, Hillsboro, Portland, Bend and Burns, Oregon. My work is currently featured in Xanadu Studios and in the Sisters Gallery and Frame Shop. My husband and I bought another ranch in 1992 at Riverside, Oregon. Our children have all graduated from college and married. One of our sons along with his wife and three children ranch with us. I have a desk with art supplies for all of our grand children, and I am painting. - Pat Siegner