Angela Saxon, Plein Air Painting

Angela Saxon, Plein Air Painting

Angela Saxon, A Leelanau County artist, Angela paints from the landscape, focusing on expressive movements in nature.

 

What inspires me…..

An acquaintance asked me to write something about what inspires me, for her blog. So thought I’d share it here too. Here goes:

“As a little kid, when asked what I wanted to be, I always replied, ‘an artist.’ But then there was that question of what to paint or what to draw. I remember asking my mom this question many times. I suppose she offered suggestions, but somehow the void was never filled.

“I went to college to study art, and still was asking the same question….what should I paint? I earned my BFA in painting, and made a lot of paintings in the process. I explored color and pattern, the still life and interiors, and the general moving around of paint. But something was always missing–I was still searching for THE answer.

A few years after graduating, after marrying and having my first daughter, our family moved to northern Michigan. I don’t know what my exact feelings about landscape paintings was, but it wasn’t necessarily something I ever thought I’d strive for.

But there it was. The landscape. Staring me in the face all day every day. It is spectacularly beautiful in northern Michigan, in any time of the year. After a few months I finally started to paint it. And the more I paint it the more I see. My eye then and now is just drawn into places in the landscape. Light playing across a meadow, huge clouds towering over the lake, it’s always captivating to me. Sometimes I wonder how many times I can paint a cloud over a lake, but so far it’s new to me every time. And I think that it is through this subject matter that my work is starting to move away from the literal,…expressing more of the emotion of what I’m looking at, not just the imagery.

“September” (Sold)

Selected Exhibitions + Awards + Collections

2012: 4th place, Northwest Michigan Regional Exhibition,Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City
2011: Interpreting Leelanau: Exhibit at the Old Art Building, Leland, MI
2011: Group Landscape Exhibit, Water Street Gallery
2010: Landscape Exhibition, Water Street Gallery
2009: Work included in “The Saugatuck Dunes: Artists Respond to a Freshwater Landscape”,  full color book
2009: American Places + Spaces, Water Street Gallery
2009: Chicago Salon: One-Person Exhibition
2009: One-Person Exhibition: Mezzanine Gallery, Cleveland
2009: His, Hers and Theirs: Exhibition with Royce Deans showing individual work
as well as collaborative series at Gallery Fifty, Traverse City
2009: Ann Arbor Salon: One-Person Exhbition
2008: Nature Interpreted, Group Exhibition, Emily Amy Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2008: Art in Embassies program collection, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo
2008: Sky & Water, Group Exhibition, Water Street Gallery, Douglas, MI
2007: Jon Stryker private collection, Kalamazoo, MI
2006: Northwest Michigan Regional Exhibition, Dennos Museum, Traverse City
2004: 1st Place, 24th Juried Fine Arts Exhibition, Crooked Tree Arts Center, Petoskey, MI
2004: One-Person Exhibition, Michigan Artists Gallery, Suttons Bay, MI
2002: One-Person Exhibition, Water Street Gallery
2002: One-Person Exhibition, Lake Street Studios, Glen Arbor, MI
2001: Honorable Mention, Int’l Society of Experimental Artists,  Dennos Museum
2001: Honorable Mention: Oils & Acrylics, A Juried Show,Traverse Area Arts Council
2001: Group Exhibition, Landscapes of Community, Dennos Museum Center
2000: Group Exhibition, Seven, Parallel Arts Gallery, Northport, MI
2000: Landscapes of Community, Group Exhibition, Dennos Museum Center
1998: Second Place: All-Media Show, Traverse Area Arts Council
1996: First Place: All-Media Show, Traverse Area Arts Council
1996: Regional Exhibition, Dennos Museum, Juror: MaryAnn Wilkinson, DIA