“There is absolutely nothing like being outdoors, painting the beauty of Nature! My goal is to push through every last area of fear, and paint with utter abandon – BEAUTY. If I could be a “Vivaldi of paint”, I would feel that I have reached my ultimate goal!”

Michelle Chrisman spent years in New York City working in advertising and illustration, and moonlighting at the New York Art Students League. At the same time she studied drawing and painting, hoping for the day when she would be a full time painter. “I have always been electrified by the look and smell of oil paint.”

In the early 90s, Michelle took a week-long workshop with Ray Vinella in Taos, that changed the course of her life. I took seriously Ray’s parting words to me to ˜keep painting, and I have done just that.

Some years ago she was able to move to Taos to paint the beauty of the place. I have not found anywhere in the world like Taos. I could literally set up my easel anywhere and paint. While not a traditional plein air painter, Michelle firmly believes in applying the principals of the visual world when she paints, although she is most excited by the abstract in the natural world.
I hope to bring a new vitality to the traditional approach to plein air painting, a modern response, while honoring the rules so to speak. I am more interested in how a place makes me feel than reproducing exactly how it looks.

Michelle’s father was a sculptor in Santa Fe who relayed to her his passion about the texture and feel of art. Maybe that is why paint quality is also important to me. I cannot imagine doing a painting where the paint itself is not given a chance to express itself. Paint is an amazingly exciting organic sensuous substance that for me is almost more important than the image it is striving to represent.

Michelle is a Signature Member of Plein Air Painters of New Mexico and has attended the Plein Air Invitational in Zion National Park, Utah. She teaches plein air painting annually for Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque and Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, and summer workshops in Taos.

Representation:  The Signature Gallery Santa Fe

https://www.thesignaturegallery.com/artists/michelle-chrisman/

https://michellechrisman.com/about

Mel Carter is highly revered in the Denver area as a unique artist and an insightful teacher. He moved to Denver in 1965 and taught art at the University of Colorado at Denver for nearly 30 years. Many artists attribute their success, at least in part, to Mel’s encouragement and instructive comments on their work. They hold him in high esteem as both mentor and friend.

Always an artist, Mel was born in Birmingham, Alabama but studied worldwide. He earned his MFA at the University of Illinois and then studied in the Netherlands on a Fulbright scholarship. He attended the Catholic University in Lima, Peru, and the Lorenzo de Medici Institute in Florence, Italy. Whether teaching at University College in London, the University of Rome or the Sorbonne in Paris, or merely experiencing life, he painted the people and places of his travels.

Mel was acknowledged as a master at bringing life to landscapes and capturing both powerful and evocative nuances in his male and female studies. Mel’s work has been admired and honored in many local, national and international exhibitions.

He is recognized as one of the 30 most significant artists of this century. Besides showing well over 70 exhibits, Mel’s work has been featured in art films and a wide variety of publications. He was a member of the Governor’s Selection Committee for Excellence in the Arts, on the Board of the Cherry Creek Arts Festival, and a juror for numerous art shows. His works are included in collections in the Denver community and around the world.

Not merely a painter of life, Mel was a participant! He involved himself with his students, whether by accommodating schedules of those who needed to work, or holding the line if they fought against themselves. As Mel traveled, he documented his journeys through beautifully illustrated sketchbooks. Then he showed his students how to engage with the world as they passed through it and make sketchbooks of their own.

As a Commissioner of Art for the City and County of Denver, Mel took an active role, with a particular eye toward public funding for minority artists. Among other kindly works, an exhibit of Mel’s yearly Christmas cards, always with the word Peace, and the presence of an angel, served as a fund raising gift to Project Angel Heart.

Mel’s love of old Denver architecture kept him happily settled in Capitol Hill for 20 years, until his death in 1998. Denver is honored to remember Mel Carter not only as an artist, but as a teacher, a role model and a friend.

KAYE HURTT

Painting has occupied my leisure time for almost 20 years.  As a plein air painter, I find pleasure in being outside in nature painting shadow and light on the landscape, architecture and figures.  Extensive training at the Denver Botanic Gardens Botanical Illustration School set me on a painting path that ultimately led to plein air painting.  Further training includes workshops with notable painters across the United States.  My passion for painting is especially inspired by the works of Richard Schmid, Quang Ho, David Demers and Dave Santillanes.