"2020 Remembered" Part 1

 I am happier outside… big sky, long views; short, intense captures of color and shape. Nature is my great teacher, and my home. I treasure the moments that have meaning for me, interpreting them on canvas and paper. I hope you, too, can see what I see.  

Born and raised in Washington, Cheryl and her husband relocated to Yakima in 2014 after 28 years in Pierce County. She is a graduate of Seattle Pacific University and retired from the Puyallup School District and a career in the field of education. For the past several years she has been pursuing a lifelong interest in the arts.

As a former member of Rainier League of Arts, she participated in numerous art shows. She exhibited regularly at the Puyallup Fair Art Show during the Washington State Fair. Cheryl was artist of the month in June 2003 at Wagner’s crafts where she demonstrated in pastel. She received the 2006 Tacoma Mayor’s Art Award for “Hailey’s Dahlia” during the South Sound 4 Art League Exhibition at the Bronze Works in Tacoma. In 2009 she received 3rd place for “Heading Home” at the RLA members show, Serendipity. In 2011 she received the People’s Choice Award at Lakewold Gardens for Hailey’s Dahlia and was also accepted into the 9th Annual Open Regional Juried Art Exhibition in Gig Harbor. Her watercolor painting, “Still Life in Red, White, Blue,” received 3rd place at the Puyallup Fair and 2nd place at the 2014 Lakewood Arts Fest. Her painting, Two Red Petunias received 3rd place for watercolor at the Washington State Fair in September, 2018. In 2019 she received 1st place in Acrylic and the Director’s Purchase Award for her painting, “September Morning” at the Central Washington State Fair in Yakima. She also received 3rd place for her drawing, “Lake Tipsoo.”

Cheryl enjoys working with a variety of mediums and strives to depict the beauty of God’s creation in flowers, landscapes, and portraits. A number of her works are in private collections in our state. 

I’m a self-taught artist who enjoys both oil and acrylic painting. Growing up and living in an agricultural community, most of my life revolved around hard work and caring for my family. Finding companionship and inspiration from a group of artists in Yakima has given me great joy and encouragement.

Mary Jepsen began watercolor painting in 2015 shortly after retiring from occupational therapy. She prefers the medium over others because of its challenge, diversity and the understanding that with watercolor, the painter is never in complete control.  

My love of art started in the 4th grade when my teacher asked us to illustrate almost every story we read and I realized that was something I could do. I loved drawing and took classes whenever I could, moving on to oil painting. Raising a family of five children kept me busy for some time, however I always found classes to take and challenges to try. I love it all - landscapes to figures, pastel to oil. Our beautiful world gives us a feast for our eyes, and trying to interpret that in a drawing or painting is engaging and sometimes there is a magic that happens. That's what keeps me trying. I plan to keep learning and painting as long as I can.