Your future, our focus
Cody artist Sara West will be exhibiting a retrospective of her work with a focus on her creative process in Northwest College’s SinClair Gallery.
An artist’s reception is scheduled to be held Tuesday, March 13, from 4:30-6 p.m. in the Advising Center, located in the Orendorff Building on the NWC campus.
West was born in Fairplay, Colorado, in 1938 and spent most of her early life in Italy and South America. She later married and lived in Pittsburgh for more than 40 years, but she now considers Cody her home.
West’s formal art training began in Lima, Peru, in 1951, where she studied oil painting with an Italian painter.
She majored in art and design at the University of Michigan but left her junior year because she wished to see more of the world. “And thanks to Pan American Airways,” West said, she was able to do just that.
In Pittsburgh, she later returned to academia, and although she sketched and painted from time to time, she did not return to her love of art until she earned her doctorate. “In the process, I realized that I preferred to create art than to think about it,” West noted.
Currently, she focuses on painting magnificent sunrises from her studio window. For these pieces, she prefers to use pastels in order to work spontaneously and quickly.
Although her artwork includes oils, watercolors and pastels, West explained, “Nevertheless, I still return to drawing that, in my case, is grounded in an Italian academic tradition. I firmly believe that drawing is timeless.”
West has pledged to donate all proceeds from her art sales to NWC Galleries.
“The donation to the Northwest Galleries is my way of thanking Denise Kelsay [NWC art and galleries coordinator] for encouraging me to show my work, and to thank John Giarrizzo [associate professor of art at Northwest], for without his generosity and friendship, this work would not have been possible,” she said.
For further information about this event, contact Kelsay at denise.kelsay@nwc.edu or 307-754-6499.
This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
For Northwest College’s full calendar of the events, visit http://nwc.edu/events.
