For six years, a group of North Coast artists has gathered to spend a week together in nature and create, bonded by a shared loss and the joy of discovery.
The group’s new show, “Shasta Sojourn: Paintings, Drawings and Photographs by Six Women Artists,” is on exhibit this month at the Upstairs Art Gallery in Arcata.
Included in the exhibit are plein air paintings and photographs by Becky Evans, Judy Evenson, Carrie Grant, Linda Mitchell, Kathy O’Leary and Theresa Oats.
In June, the women gathered for a week-long trip to Mount Shasta where they captured lavender fields, lupine prairies, alpine lakes, rivers and, of course, mountains.
The story of this body of work actually begins six years ago with nine artists spending a week on the Mad River to paint and photograph nature. It was a trip modeled after some of the women’s husbands who were also artists and took a similar annual trip. Some of the women knew each other, some were friends and others were just familiar names in the art community.
”We bonded right from the beginning,” said Linda Mitchell. “We had different personalities, but similar interests as mature women artists. We understood each other.”
Days were spent painting or photographing alone. Evenings would wind down enjoying an elaborately cooked gourmet dinner — they took turns cooking — over laughter and a sharing of their day’s work as paintings were set out to dry.
But two incidents shook the group in its second year. First, painter Theresa Oats exchanged glances with a mountain lion while on the trip.
”We tended to split up and paint on our own,” Mitchell said. “We realized that could be deadly. We bought whistles and made sure to always wear them.”
The second incident was Ingrid Nickelsen’s death in 2005.”Ingrid was a person we all looked up to as a real plein air painter,” said Mitchell. “She would go backpacking to remote locations sometimes for days or weeks at a time on her own. She was comfortable in nature, more comfortable than she was around people or in the city.”
Nickelsen was a member of the informal group, but on a later solo trip that summer, a fall shattered her ankle and threw out both hips on a hiking trail. Stranded in a remote area of the Siskiyou Mountains beyond communication, the injury would take her life.
”The incident was such a trauma for everyone in the group it brought us closer together,” Mitchell said.
The next year, the women gathered again at the ranch house on the Mad River. The impact of Nickelsen’s absence was evident to photographer Carrie Grant in a seminal moment.
”I suddenly realized all of us were sitting in this little tiny backyard of the ranch house, women within elbow reach of each other and their French easels, all huddled together and totally comfortable, and it didn’t seem unusual,” she said. “We’re united somehow with no great need to be isolated. We’ve combined as a community.”
These days the artists will trek in pairs or trios with an awareness of the inherent danger of going out alone, but also the enjoyment of treasuring the moments they are together.
”This group of women is special. We don’t judge each other, no comparisons or criteria,” said Grant. “We can each be ourselves and do what we need to do.”
Oil painter Kathy O’Leary agreed. “Being an artist is a fairly isolated and lonely job, and these trips are a place where we aren’t lonely,” she said. “We share our experiences and fears and work in an atmosphere where we know we won’t be judged when we say, ‘Here is what I did today and I’m really excited about it.’”
Several of the artists are now trustees of the Ingrid Nickelsen Trust, which issues annual grants to Humboldt County women artists based on Nickelsen’s final wishes. Grants are awarded in the realms of fine art painting, sculpture and photography. More information about the trust can be obtained by e-mailing: intrust@humboldt1.com.
”We look for the same kind of drive and motivation that Ingrid had, the kind of woman who is so driven to do her art that she can’t help herself, and yet has some realistic plan about how to survive as an artist,” Grant said.
“When you’re in a forest there’s a feeling of almost walking inside a living organism,” Harris said. “That life force that is the woods is the feeling I get when I’m there. It’s not a particular tree or river scene, but a sense of place.” It is that sense that Harris strives to convey through photography, an expression of what being in a place feels like. However, black and white images of forests never met his personal standards. Harris didn’t photograph them.
