April Waters (born 1954, Santa Monica, California) is an American Artist who paints American and polar landscapes. She is best known for water themed landscape paintings and large-scale portraits of women environmental leaders. Her work has been exhibited at museums, universities, galleries and at forums on water and climate issues with scientists and government officials
Waters earned a BFA at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She also studied at the Art Center School of Design, Los Angeles; at UCLA; and California State University, Fullerton. [1] She is married to architect Nathan Good. [2]
April Waters' works are held in public and private collections, such as Oregon State University, Salem Hospital, Edward C. Allworth Veterans' Home, Mount Angel Abbey, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Slocum Orthopedic Center and Riverbend Peace Health Hospital in Springfield, Oregon, as well as internationally. Waters' work was exhibited at the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan from 2012-2015 through the United States Arts in Embassies Program. [3]
Waters was a National Park Artist in Residence for the Crater Lake Centennial Celebration and Exhibition at the Schneider Museum of Art in Ashland, Oregon. She was also an Artist in Residence in July 2022 at the Ilulissat Art Museum in Ilulissat, Greenland. [4]
Waters has multiple works in Oregon's Percent for Art Collection. [5]
In 2018, Waters was a grantee of the National Science Foundation for "deployment to Palmer Station, Antarctica... [for] the opportunity to observe, sketch, and produce paintings of the ocean, sea ice, icebergs, and Marr Glacier. The focus on water was to bring a fresh and unique perspective to observe and express the Antarctic wilderness. Her goal [was] to communicate the beauty as well as the vulnerability of Antarctica's ecosystem and help communicate the region's sense of wonder to the public. Her unique perspective provides a distinctive addition to the Antarctic Artists and Writers portfolio." [6]
Prior to her trip to Antarctica, Bob Hicks of Oregon ArtsWatch wrote: [7]
In 2018, Oregon artist April Waters — known for her works that focus on water and contemporary women leaders — turned her attention to Antarctica. As a grantee of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, Waters traveled to Palmer Station to observe, study, photograph, and sketch the ocean, icebergs, and Marr Glacier. After witnessing firsthand, the beauty and harsh realities of a landscape facing monumental change, coupled with profound implications for the entire globe, Waters returned to her studio to transform her sketches, photographs and experiences into paintings of the earth’s southernmost continent.
— Bob Hicks, Antarctic Journey: Waters on Ice
"As Antarctica is undergoing dramatic changes in response to climate change," marine biologist Dr. Kim Bernard of Oregon State University says, "I hope that those who experience the paintings that April Waters has created from her Antarctic expedition feel awed and inspired to protect this place. [8]
In 2019, Waters was recognized with a United States of America, Antarctica Service Medal.
Articles about Waters' trip to Antarctica, about the work, and about the exhibit were also featured in The Salem Reporter and in Press Play Salem. [9] [10]
The work resulted in several exhibitions. From May 7 – August 13, 2022, the work was exhibited at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem, Oregon. [6] [11] [12] From March 15 – April 28, 2023, the work was exhibited at the Giustina Gallery at Oregon State University. [8] From October 9, 2023 to February 29, 2024 portions of the work are on display at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. [13]
Her work on rivers, creeks, estuaries, and oceans, has led to regional and national acclaim, exhibitions and collaborations with scientists and universities. The American Water Resources Association described her process, "When she is inspired by a place, she goes there often, in different seasons and on different times of the day. In most cases, she sketches or paints on site. Equipped with sketches and her experiences, she then paints in her studio using oil on canvas or oil on panel." [14]
The Statesman Journal wrote of her work, "A river is a natural subject for Waters. Many of her paintings are focused on area rivers, creeks, estuaries, and coastlines and exhibited in hospitals, clinics, and other health-related facilities." [15]
Bob Hicks of Oregon Arts Watch wrote, "What might seem at first glance simply a well-rendered landscape is certainly that, but also more: It is an examination of waterways, their shifting patterns, their effect on humans and the way we live our lives, the precarious ecological balances of a world in climate upheaval. There is something, not clinical, but deeply observational about her interpretations of the natural world and the way things work." [6]
Water, with its qualities of reflection, transparency, movement and life generation, has been the focus of her work. The Willamette River Series paintings began as an aerial exploration of the beautiful landscape of the region, and evolved into studies of the movement of the river, flooding, and its impact on the geography of the land through which it flows.[ citation needed ]
In a 2014 interview in Willamette Valley Life Magazine, Waters said, "I go to my sources of inspiration and paint from life. It is invigorating for me to paint by the side of a creek or river. It awakens all the senses." [16]
Her series "Sheroes" portrays women who advocate for humanitarian and environmental justice by taking stands to protect people and resources. They have taken a stand to protect people and/or resources. Most of the women have made contributions to the equitable sharing and protection of clean water. An exhibition at the Pacific Northwest College of Art consisted of seven large-scale portraits of larger-than-life women inclucde Vandana Shiva, Wangari Maathai, Malalai Joya, Helen Caldicott, Amy Goodman, Cindy Sheehan, and Maude Barlow. [1] Since then, a portrait of Dr. Sylvia Earle has been added to the series.[ citation needed ]
While Waters' major works over the last thirty years have focused on the beauty and power of oceans, rivers and streams, she learned about the social and environmental threats to water as a primary element of life and to the efforts of the women featured in the portraits. Each woman has taken a unique stand to protect natural resources and the people dependent on them. The oil-on-canvas paintings, each standing seven feet by five feet, envelop the viewer in the clear gaze of the woman depicted, pulling the viewer into her story.[ citation needed ]
Many of the portraits featured in this show were part of a 2010 exhibit at the Willamette University Hallie Ford Museum. Museum director John Olbrantz noted,"wonderful portraits of contemporary women leaders... attracted thousands of visitors."[ citation needed ]
Marie Watt is a contemporary artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. Enrolled in the Seneca Nation of Indians, Watt has created work primarily with textile arts and community collaboration centered on diverse Native American themes.
John Mix Stanley was an artist-explorer, an American painter of landscapes, and Native American portraits and tribal life. Born in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he started painting signs and portraits as a young man. In 1842 he traveled to the American West to paint Native American life. In 1846 he exhibited a gallery of 85 of his paintings in Cincinnati and Louisville. During the Mexican–American War, he joined Colonel Stephen Watts Kearney's expedition to California and painted accounts of the campaign, as well as aspects of the Oregon Territory.
The Hallie Ford Museum of Art (HFMA) is the museum of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, United States. It is the third largest art museum in Oregon. Opened in 1998, the facility is across the street from the Oregon State Capital in downtown Salem, on the western edge of the school campus. Hallie Ford exhibits collections of both art and historical artifacts with a focus on Oregon related pieces of art and artists in the 27,000 square feet (2,500 m2) facility. The museum also hosts various traveling exhibits in two of its six galleries.
Charles Edward Heaney (1897–1981) was an American painter and printmaker. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, he worked for the Works Progress Administration as an artist and did several works featuring Mount Hood and Timberline Lodge as the subject matter.
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Hallie Brown Ford was an American business person and philanthropist. A native of Oklahoma, she acquired her wealth in Oregon through the timber industry. As a philanthropist she made donations to many institutions in Oklahoma and Oregon to support education and the arts. Shortly before her death in 2007, she made a donation of $15 million to the Pacific Northwest College of Art, the largest single donation to any cultural group in Oregon history.
Richard Elmer "Rick" Bartow was a Native American artist and a member of the Mad River band of the Wiyot Tribe, who are indigenous to Humboldt County, California. He primarily created pastel, graphite, and mixed media drawings, wood sculpture, acrylic paintings, drypoint etchings, monotypes, and a small number of ceramic works.
Gail Tremblay was an American writer and artist from Washington State. She is known for weaving baskets from film footage that depicts Native American people, such as Western movies and anthropological documentaries. She received a Washington State Governor's Arts and Heritage Award in 2001.
Laura Ross-Paul is a contemporary painter of oil and wax in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In 2010 The Oregonian's OregonLive.com referred to her as a "venerable [figure] from Portland's long established vanguard" of art.
Phyllis Yes is an Oregon-based artist and playwright. Her artistic media range from works on painted canvas to furniture, clothing, and jewelry. She is known for her works that “feminize” objects usually associated with a stereotypically male domain, such as machine guns, hard hats, and hammers. Among her best-known artworks are “Paint Can with Brush,” which appears in Tools as Art, a book about the Hechinger Collection, published in 1996 and her epaulette jewelry, which applies “feminine” lace details to the epaulette, a shoulder adornment that traditionally symbolizes military prowess. In 1984 she produced her controversial and widely noted “Por She,” a silver 1967 Porsche 911-S, whose body she painstakingly painted in highly tactile pink and flesh-toned lace rosettes. She exhibited it at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in New York in 1984 and drove it across the United States as a traveling exhibition in 1985. In 2016, she wrote her first play, Good Morning Miss America, which began its first theatrical run at CoHo Theatre in Portland, Oregon in March 2018.
Wendy Red Star is an Apsáalooke contemporary multimedia artist born in Billings, Montana, in the United States. Her humorous approach and use of Native American images from traditional media draw the viewer into her work, while also confronting romanticized representations. She juxtaposes popular depictions of Native Americans with authentic cultural and gender identities. Her work has been described as "funny, brash, and surreal".
Constance Edith Fowler (1907–1996) was an American artist known as a painter and printmaker, an author, and an educator who taught at Willamette University and Albion College.
Norma Heyser is an American contemporary artist from Portland, Oregon, who worked in mixed media and new art forms, influenced by Cubism and Abstract expressionism.
Eunice Lulu Parsons, also known as Eunice Jensen Parsons, is an American modernist artist known for her collages. Parsons was born in Loma, Colorado, and currently lives in Portland, Oregon. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Portland Museum Art School, where she also worked as a teacher for over 20 years.
Robert Henry Hess was an American sculptor and art educator. He was best known for his abstract metal sculptures and wood carvings. Hess served on the faculty of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, for 34 years. Today, his works are found in prominent public spaces and private collections throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Nelle "Nel" Isabel Law (1914–1990) was an Australian artist, poet and diarist. As the wife of the scientist and explorer Phillip Law, she was the first Australian woman to set foot in Antarctica on 8 February 1961 when she travelled with her husband to the Mawson Station.
Michele Martin Taylor, is an American fine art painter. She is best known for her Post-Impressionist works in oil, watercolor and intaglio. Her subjects are often gardens, water and verdure, but also portraits, figural studies and interiors.
Ruth Dennis Grover (1912–2003) was a painter and educator from Oregon known for her landscapes and her abstract art.
K.A. Colorado, is an American-Canadian visual artist, painter, and sculptor best known for his representational work depicting climate change, deep cold, and the environment. He was the artist-in-residence for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and is the creator of the Ice Core Sculpture Series depicting polar scientific studies, material, and DNA from around the world.
George Johanson was a painter, printmaker, and ceramic tile artist. Johanson studied at the Museum Art School in Portland, Oregon, with further study in New York as well as London. He taught at the Museum Art School for 25 years until his retirement from teaching in 1980.