Center for the Arts Evergreen couldn’t exist without the participation and support of artists and teacher in our community. We are honored to learn from and feature our Artist Members each week. Please click on the link to be taken to each individual artist’s Featured Artist page. Enjoy!

Frances Listou

As with most artists, Frances has always been! Of course, in childhood, there was coloring (still enjoys), drawing, scrapbooking, and mud pies (which must be why she enjoys clay sculpting). In her twenties, she studied drawing and painting at the Maryland Institute of Art. From these studies came her love of pen and ink. Frances’ thirties brought clay into her artwork when she moved to Colorado in 1978 and joined Tom Ware’s clay sculpting group in 1982. Frances’ interest in stone carving happened in her late forties when her husband, Erik, gifted her a hammer, chisels, and a stone. She said, “I started chipping away not having any idea of how or what I was doing”. That sculpture, Moon Struck, sold! After that, she became a stoner. She chuckles stating she does not smoke or chew…Frances carves rocks – redefining the term “stoner”! This led Frances, then in her fifties, to attend many MARBLE/marble Symposiums in Marble CO. Thus, her craving for carving CO Yule Marble. Now in her late seventies, Frances is still a stoner! She states, “It is exuberant!”. However, she still enjoys working with clay and painting.

Learn more about Frances on her Featured Artist page.

Robert Gray

Robert Gray is a Colorado artist born in Denver and paints in several mediums. When he’s painting, whatever the subject matter happens to be, his goal is to keep the work exciting with lots of action, color, and loose style.  He somewhat leans towards western action.  His aim is technique/style rather than subject.

Robert conducts watercolor and acrylic workshops throughout the Denver area, Palmer Lake, Colorado and taught in Green Valley, Arizona.  His paintings are located in several foreign countries and corporate collections.  He has won several awards including Best of Show in Littleton’s 1999 “Own an Original,” Roxborough Arts Council’s 2012 “Autumn in the Arts,” and Heritage Fine Art Guild’s 2013 “This is Colorado—Statewide Juried Exhibition.”

Click here to learn more about Robert on his Featured Artist page.

Rebecca Richman

In love with the natural world, I’m inspired to show how species are connected to one another and to their ecosystem homes. Art can uniquely share ideas and perspectives without saying a word. An eternal optimist, I bring into visual form the concept of biological diversity and what it means to be connected to the whole. In our connection lies hope.

Throughout all the ups and downs of life, nature has always been there for me, just like my family and close friends. In nature is where I feel most connected to something bigger. It’s my home, my solace, my peace. It’s where I heal.

​It’s an honor to share my work and its message with you. Let’s inspire everyone around us to live more gently on the Earth by sharing our love for nature and celebrating the unity of all life.

Click here to learn more about Rebecca on her Featured Artist page.

Bryant Robert

A few years ago, I began to blend my passions together with fitness and art. Trying to capture a perspective of the human body in an image that shows the athlete/dancer in a moments of beauty, strength, and emotion. Sort of a modern day Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, their intensive studies and styles inspired me to follow my journey and reinvent my own style. Filled with gestures, lines, shapes, form, and value, each piece brings me closer to discovering the amazing relationships of the human anatomy and human emotions. Out of the darkness I show the light that reveals the beauty and strength of each athlete and dancer.

Click here to learn more about Bryant on his Featured Artist page.

Adrienne Stohr Lewis

Adrienne Stohr Lewis is a Community Herbalist, intuitive artist, and Creatively Fit Coach at Otter Woman eARTh Medicine.  She lives in Evergreen, Colorado with her husband, 2 boys, and beloved dogs. She is a self-taught artist who found art as a survival tool as a young mother. Today she believes in women nurturing their connection to what is alive within them through time in nature, ritual, and self-discovery. The ancient saying “As above so below; As within so without” is the embodiment of her practice. Adrienne teaches workshops at her beautiful Evergreen Studio and online. She sells her art worldwide. You can find her online offerings and personal insight into her work by following her on Instagram (@otter.woman) and on Facebook at Otter Woman Earth Medicine.

Click here to learn more about Adrienne on her Featured Artist page.

Susie Drucker

Susie grew up near Lake Michigan in northern Illinois, exploring the beaches and ravines near her home. Her love of nature has informed her work, serving as both inspiration and ideation as she has developed from photographer to sketch artist to painter.

After moving to Evergreen, Colorado in 2014, Susie began to paint full-time. Living in Colorado had been her dream ever since her first visit to the mountains on a childhood trip to Estes Park. Susie knew that her home – and her art – were meant to be out West.

Click here to learn more about Susie on her Featured Artist page.

Kelley James

Born in 1970 in Anaheim, California, Kelley currently resides and practices her art in Denver, Colorado. She is a self-taught acrylic and mixed media painter. Her work is a reflection of a life spent creating. Kelley’s early years explored singing and stage. Later, that same creative energy merged into a unique floral design studio, and from there, visual merchandising, window displays, and personal styling. Today, Kelley is inspired by a need to connect with the world around her, to have a voice, and to find and share deep beauty. Compositions are driven by nature, emotion, transformation, simple observations, patterns, architecture, and erosion.

Click here to learn more about Kelley on her Featured Artist page.

Paul Thisted

Paul is an artist who tells stories in the genre of early American painters Russell, Remington, and Homer. His Mom was a self-taught painter and she has been his creative inspiration. Because of her, he took a painting class in college which got him hooked. He then had two careers, the Air Force and teaching middle school math, before he resumed painting. After moving to Evergreen, he started with landscape painting workshops, then got serious and went to an Idaho workshop from Russian colorist Ovanes Berberian. He kept pushing his skills by learning from other prominent western artists, Jill Carver, G Russess Case, Dave Santillanes, and Ovanes again. He began painting cowboys and horses and the stories they represent and found his style and voice. Western images continue to be his creative focus to portray spirited scenes with vibrant color.

Paul paints in Evergreen, is active in two art gallery co-ops, and displays his paintings in several locations.  Painting is his meditation, and he calls it his happy poetry time.

Click here to learn more about Paul on his Featured Artist page.

Ted Garcia

Ted’s style grew out of commercial illustration mixed with a newfound joy of Russian impressionism. He has concentrated to develop the merging of the two styles to create the bold and vivid paintings for which he is known.

In Ted’s words, “I find that Plein Air painting brings a great opportunity to develop an emotional connection with the viewer. The beautiful thing is that the painting is a very personal statement of who the artist is, once a painting is completed. As an example, the simple yet bold brushstrokes may take a painter a lifetime of painting to find the unique voice that only they carry.”

Click here to learn more about Ted on his Featured Artist page.

Linda Renaud

Linda is a second-career artist who has painted in watercolor off and on through most of her adult life.  She took a watercolor batik workshop and was getting serious about painting full time when a bout with breast cancer did three things – she became the “artist-in-residence” on the chemo ward, she lost her hair permanently, and it made her serious about being an artist.  Linda has painted in wax batik ever since.

Linda teaches watercolor wax batik, and she regularly gets into juried shows, often winning awards.

Click here to learn more about Linda on her Featured Artist page.

Maria Sheets

Maria Sheets is a decades-long professional art objects conservator and painter in the mediums of oil, egg tempera, and glass pigments.

From 2006 to 2017, Sheets company, now known as Foothills Art Conservation,  was contracted as chief conservator for the fire recovery project at the Museum of Biblical Art and the National Jewish Collection in Dallas, Texas .

Sheets has been contracted by large glass firms for numerous architectural glass commissions which include universities, sacred spaces, businesses and private residences nationally.  Her work was chosen in recent juried exhibitions such as American Glass Guild NOW 2016 (juror, contemporary artist Judith Schaecter), Texas National 2018 (juror Jed Perl, international art critic), and Materials Hard and Soft International Craft Exhibition 2019 (2nd place of 1100 entries).  She is currently represented by Valkarie Gallery in Lakewood, CO.

Sheets studio is located in Evergreen, Colorado and her work can be viewed at  mariasheetsglassworks.com and the valkariefineart.com. Click here to learn more about Maria on her Featured Artist page.

Karen Armon

As a fine art oil painter, Karen creates landscapes for collectors who want to love and cherish their paintings forever. She works one-on-one with art lovers to make unique pieces that reflect their individual style for their home or office. As a result, her collectors often develop a special connection that lasts a lifetime. Click here to learn more about Karen.

Andi Burnum

Andi Burnum is a paper mosaic artist and illustrator.  She got her first picture published in the school calendar in second grade and has been creating ever since.  In high school, she was painting nonstop, plowing through all the class’ art supplies.  Her art teacher gave her a paper mosaic project to slow her down and boy, did it ever. She immediately fell in love with the process. Andi decided to major in art in college and made it an entire year before deciding that no one could make a living doing studio art and she didn’t want to do graphic design. Pre-med seemed like a nice choice. After a quick detour medical assisting in the orthopedic world, she decided that perhaps this wasn’t creative enough. It seemed logical to start a moderately successful chocolate truffle company, AndiChocolates.  Eventually, Andi found herself putting more creative energy into designing the chocolate boxes than the chocolates. After a small natural disaster, she decided to box up the business and move on. Although she’d been doing mosaics as side projects for years, in 2014 Andi finally circled around and found herself being fulfilled with creating fine art. Learn more about Andi on her Featured Artist page here.

Denali Brooke

Denali Brooke is an international award winning artist who has exhibited in the last three International Association of Pastel Societies Exhibitions (2015, 2017, and 2019).  While living in New Mexico, she won several awards both in national and statewide juried exhibitions. She had the honor of assisting Dawn Emerson in some of the initial organization of her book, Pastel Innovations. Denali is a Signature member of the Pastel Society of America (2019) and earned her BFA from the University of Arizona in 1987.  She has collectors as far away as South Africa and Spain.  To give back to her community, she volunteers drawing demos for schools, senior centers, and other fund-raising events; and presented her journey as a disabled artist before disability advocates and FDIC representatives at the Building Financial Inclusion for All: A Call to Action conference in 2017, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Visit her website here.  Denali’s Venmo account is @Denali-Brooke.

Patsi Pohle

Patsi Pohle is a prolific artist – her art career spans over thirty years. She works in oils,  and acrylics with pallet knife.  In addition, she accepts private commissions. Patsi’s love now is painting her own fine art creations.  She finds inspiration for her Art in the flora and fauna of Evergreen and on her high country hikes and photography expeditions.

Patsi earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the Academy of Art in San Francisco. She also holds an Associate Degree in Commercial Art from Indiana Technical College. She spent her early career working as a commercial artist, both as staff and freelance artist for clients including Cummins Engine Co, Arvin Industries, Grote Manufacturing, Lear Siegler, and R.R. Donnelley. 

Patsi is a member of the Evergreen Artists Association, Center for the Arts Evergreen, the Gilpin Arts Association and the Colorado Mountain Art Gallery. Her current goal is to create art on a full time basis in the pallet knife styles that she enjoys. You can find her online here.  Patsi’s Venmo is: @Patsi-Pohle.

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Theresa Howell

Theresa Howell is the co-author of MAYBE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL (co-written with F. Isabel Campoy, illustrated by Rafael López, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), which was inspired by the Urban Art Trail project in San Diego, which has led to similar community art projects throughout the United States. MAYBE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL was selected as the 2018 Read for the Record title, is the winner of the 2017 Tomás Rivera Book Award. Theresa is also the author of the picture book series SCOUT MOORE, JUNIOR RANGER (Grand Canyon Conservancy, Globe Pequot Press), featuring the bright, curious, outdoor-loving Scout who motivates young readers to get out there and explore our national parks and nature for themselves. Her latest book, LEADING THE WAY: WOMEN IN POWER, co-authored with Senator Janet Howell, features 50 bios of women in American politics.

Theresa began her career in publishing as a children’s book editor with Rising Moon, where she helped establish the bilingual imprint Luna Rising and published a number of award-winning titles. She lives in Colorado with her husband and two daughters. There, she hikes, reads, dances, and dreams. You can learn more about her books here. Instead of a donation, Theresa has asked that viewers support Hearthfire Books here in Evergreen.

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Steve Griggs

Steve Griggs likes to think of his paintings as a love letter to the people, places, and moments that make up the human experience. A single painting might speak a thousand different stories to a thousand different people. Nevertheless, a painting can remind us that, though our stories might differ, we are all connected. The experience of being human makes us one. The goal of Steve’s art is not to paint each leaf or twig or rock in a landscape. Using movement and representation, Steve paints to nudge the beauty, lingering within the soul, to life. He paints to evoke memory, feeling, and meaning.
Steve loves sharing his unique and evocative style of painting. He often hears that he makes it look easier than it actually is, but he is enthusiastic about teaching and encouraging others to not just try out his style but to develop their own style and voice in painting.
Steve and his partner, Sue, make up the team of SteveGriggsWatercolor. They have contributed several instructional articles to Watercolor Artist Magazine and The Artist (out of the UK) and have a YouTube channel here with videos intended to teach, inspire, or just entertain. Whatever else life brings, Steve and Sue are committed to bringing more joy and beauty to the world through art. Their Venmo account is @Sue-Griggs.
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Laura A Mehmert

“To write, paint, or sculpt is a lifelong process. It takes courage and tenacity to pour one’s heart out and put it on public view. It is risky but rewarding. I paint because it gives me pleasure and fills me with energy. It balances me. I strive to paint with a fresh eye and open heart. I hope you will receive the same joy from my work as I do creating it.”

Laura studied at the University of Missouri Kansas City and has taught private watercolor and oil classes for 30 years. You can find Laura online here and you can make a donation to her practice here.

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Beth Lindsay

Beth Lindsay’s art explodes with bold and vibrant color.  She has had a jewelry design business for over 10 years and recently rediscovered her love for painting.  As a child, she dreamt of being a dancer; she creates jewelry and paints with that in mind.  Beth strives to get colors and shapes to dance and move in a pleasing way and her pieces are joyously unrestrained.

Growing up with an artistic family, surrounded by eclectic design and an education rich in different artistic styles led to Beth’s passion for contemporary art.  Paintings that are courageous, flowing, thick with texture and experimentation and ripe with color, make her feel exhilarated. Jewlery that is out of the ordinary, incorporates off-loom handwoven beaded pieces and a variety of organic materials make up her unique line of adornments.

Beth grew up in Evergreen, CO and feels blessed to be able to create to her heart’s content in the mountains she loves. You can see her works here. Beth strongly supports EChO. You can make a donation to help support their mission here.

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Cathy Jones

“I came to put paint on paper long after having been inspired by the impressionist painters while studying for my Bachelor of Arts Degree in Paris and Grenoble, France. After graduation from the University of Illinois, I married and moved to New England and was immersed in the fine art museums of Harvard College and Boston, MA. Subsequently we moved to Denver, Colorado where we enjoyed the mountains from a distance but could not resist their siren call. So after a few years we moved to Evergreen, an artist community 25 miles west of Denver, situated in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. During this time I discovered Georgia O’Keefe and fell in love with her sensuous style of painting flowers and southwestern landscapes. I finally discovered my muse was watercolor and decided to concentrate my painting efforts in that medium. I am currently painting contemporary mountain landscapes. I continue to explore the medium of watercolor and it constantly reveals itself to me in different ways and inspires me to be more creative.” You can find Cathy online here. Cathy would prefer that any donations come directly to CAE, which we kindly appreciate.

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