Town Hall Arts announces May's Artist of the Month - Carolyn Macpherson

Combining a lifelong fascination with color, photography, and design, Carolyn has explored several media in her 30 years as an artist.  Her early art studies were at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where she obtained an art teaching credential so that she could share her fascination with college students.  She taught design principles, calligraphy, and painting at a small junior college in Longview, Washington.  She exhibited widely around the state in her primary medium at that time, a combination of oil and collage used to create abstract landscape, and garnered a number of regional art show awards.

    While in Washington, Carolyn was active in arts organizations and was elected to the Washington State Arts Advocacy Commission in 1976.  For seven years she directed the second largest regional art show in the state, the Southwest Washington Arts Festival.  Her philosophy has been that volunteering in the arts, rubbing elbows with artists and people who love art, keeps an artist’s perspective fresh and challenged.

    While spending two colorful years in Venezuela, she discovered she was allergic to oil paints, and made a difficult but necessary switch to watercolor.  One last successful oil painting art show in Puerto Ordaz bought her a ticket back home to the States where she studied watercolor with Bill Colby, a  well know Tacoma artist.

    Seeking a sunnier climates than Washington after her hiatus in the tropics, she moved to California in 1980 where she became an active member of the San Mateo Arts Council.  But living in the stressful environment of the Bay Area caused her to feel her art career was “on hold”.  She had a full-time job as Executive Director of the Bay Area Camp Fire Council for fives years, which  left little time for art development.

    So, like many couples seeking a quieter life and the “romance of the Sierra”, she and her husband, Richard, moved to Arnold in 1988.  Upon arriving in the foothills and finding that the Arts Council here was somewhat floundering, she became involved again as a volunteer.  She served as the council’s president for two years and was one of the original founders of the Art-Op Gallery in Murphys.

    Currently, Carolyn’s watercolors and photography reflect her surroundings—Motherlode thunder clouds, golden hills, brightly colored birds and flowers interpreted representationally though wet, transparent watercolors and sharp focus photographs, with an occasional abstract impression thrown in for variety.

    Her pouring technique, used for the background of everything from koi fish, portraits, skies, to florals, has become the signature for her style.  Carolyn’s watercolor floral of irises is published in the book How Did You Paint That?   She has won numerous first place awards at juried art shows in Northern California.

Photo courtesy Town Hall Arts