Featured Artist - RAETTE MEREDITH

KALISPELL’S PAINT, METAL, AND MUD GALLERY features new artist, Raette Meredith


'Off the Hidden Lake Trail' by Raette Meredith

Raette Meredith’s “Glacier Park Series” exhibit opens on September 6th, during the First Friday events in downtown Kalispell. Raette will be at the gallery that evening for an artist’s reception from 5:30 PM until 8:00 PM. Raette will be doing a demonstration painting between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

Paint, Metal and Mud, an artist cooperative located in Kalispell features 12 artists’ work. Raette Meredith is the most recent addition to the gallery, where she exhibits vibrant palette knife oil paintings.

In March of 2013 Raette, her husband Robert, three children: Tristan, Alexis and Raechel, three dogs, cat and two fish returned to her husband’s home state of Montana. The open spaces and numerous trails open for exploration that Montana offers inspires Raette more than ever to connect with nature the best way she knows how, by painting.

“I first found satisfaction with creating art when I was a young child. I don’t remember any time in my life when I wasn’t drawing or building something. As an adult, I find painting with oils and a palette knife is the most challenging, and has held my attention longer than any other medium. When painting, time stops, I am completely focused on the subject I am painting. This focus keeps me grounded. Painting is not an option for me, it is something that I simply must do to feel complete."



'Avalanche Gorge' by Raette Meredith

"I try to capture the impermanence in nature in my paintings, moving my knife across the canvas in the same manner the subject was formed. As I work through the painting, colors begin to vividly emerge and my eyes become more sensitive to the changes of color in light and shadow. Upon completion of a painting I feel refreshed as if given a new day. It is my hope that the viewer also feels nature’s impermanence, inspiration and refreshment when looking on these paintings."

"Inspiration is everywhere here, no matter which way you look, there is so much to paint and I have never felt more alive as an artist. I finally feel like I have found my home.”

Raette’s most recent series of paintings feature popular views from spectacular Glacier National Park and Going to the Sun Road. The paintings are done with a palette knife and oil paint, are thick with texture, movement and color. She paints both on location and in her home studio. When not painting she enjoys hiking and thinking about the next painting she will be working on. "

Raette's artist's reception on September 6, 2013, will be from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the gallery, located at 16 First Street, Kalispell. Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Montana M stickers!

These stickers have just arrived! Pick them up at the shop for $3 each. They are 6"x4" high quality vinyl stickers can show your Montana pride in all kinds of places -- your car, your fridge, your kayak, your rocket...what, you don't put stickers on your rocket? Well, okay then, but surely you have a friend or relative that's moved from Montana and misses it. Designed by Michaela Eaves! (PS: The actual stickers don't have the artist's name on them -- it's just for internet sharing info.)

Featured Artist: Cheryl Ross Ellingson

Cheryl Ross Ellingson is the featured artist this month at 

Paint, Metal & Mud.  

Cheryl's stoneware and raku jars are showcased in our window 

and in the gallery.  

The stoneware glazes reflect the orange and gold hues found in the Flathead summer sunsets and raku glazes shimmer with green and turquoise hues reflecting in waterways found through our beautiful valley.

 

 

Stop in and meet Cheryl August 7th or 13th from 10 am to 6 pm!

Hey, mudders! Michaela here! I got a great opportunity in Tacoma, Washington to do some live painting at the annual Art on the Ave event. There were about 20,000 people there, and I went in with a 48" x 48' piece of wood that I'd only prepped with a coat of dark purple paint. I didn't even know what I was going to paint! I worked from 11am until 7pm, and here's the painting I came up with. It was so much fun working with people stopping by. The festival organizers were great, and they thoughtfully set up an interactive area right next to mine where kids *and* adults got to do some painting of their own. Genius!