Confluence of Creativity At The MDHC

Local artists Trish Stevenson and Afton Ray have gathered a treasure trove of local and regional artists to the "Confluence of Creativity" at the MonDak Heritage Center in Sidney. The show, which runs through July 27, will feature about 14 different artists including painters, a book illustrator, a glass artist and more, plus musical acts.

The Roundup will be regularly featuring artists from the show.

Marsha Lehmann lives and paints the ranch life in its rugged beauty. She works exclusively from her own reference photos, not staged but taken in real time...she then goes to her studio and puts together a "moment frozen in time" on canvas. She works in oils with the majority of her work reflecting her deep desire to record the animals, both wildlife and domestic, and the contemporary ranch families whose lives revolve around those animals and the land.

Lehmann shares her inpiration this way. "Many years ago, home from college, where I studied commercial art, while we were moving cattle, I was struck by the beauty of the cattle moving through a draw and around a dam where Canada geese swam with their young...with my dad on horseback behind the cattle...I knew I wanted to paint that.

I didn't have a camera on horseback that day but have carried one ever since! I carry the camera everywhere, capturing ideas as I see them on the ranch. Working exclusively from my own reference photos I put together many rough drafts and then a painting...understanding how light falls on the subject and trying to put that into oil paint...a newborn calf we just pulled into the shed with dappled light coming through the panels or the mare coming around a pole at the high school rodeo finals, with a wild look of determination in her eye while leaving a trail of dust in a split second...or most often, the quietness of cattle grazing with cowbirds at their feet while my corgis Sam and Wrango and I are checking with the ranger...and thinking how the light bounces off their black hair...and how do you paint that: (Although I do like to paint plein air, I have set up my easel on the 4 wheeler amongst the cattle and painted, time always seems to be an issue)."