April 2006 Artist of the Month

Each month LARAC highlights the work of an Artist from the Adirondack Region.

Elizabeth grew up in Pennsylvania and came to the Adirondack Mountains in the 80s to work, make a home, find love, and discover her passion.  She has always loved to draw and would doodle on everything that she could.  As a kid she was dragged to the many concerts that her siblings were in and would draw all over the concert programs.  The music moved her to draw, to express what she felt through the music.

Since then her artwork has taken many forms:  photography, painting (oils, watercolors), pencil, even to designing and building her own home, including the creation of a stone hearth from rocks she collected from her Adirondack property.   It’s the connection to the earth that sustains, inspires and completes her.  She feels that her art is expressed best when she allows herself to be fully open to the natural world.  A passion deep within her ignites when she intensely studies a subject and discovers the magnificence of its beauty.

All of her photographs and oil paintings are inspired from actual Adirondack wilderness landscapes where she has personally skied, bushwhacked, canoed or backpacked.   Her photographs reveal the complex designs and intricate details of the beautiful Adirondack wilderness that are woven into a spectacular tapestry.  Ultimately, it is the beautiful wildness and complexity of nature that draws her to take a photograph ... it is her passion.  She is energized when she is able to become so intimate with the subject that it almost takes her in and allows her to capture its essence.  She now refers to her current collection of art as “Wilderness Inspired Art - Fabrics of Nature”.  From the power captured in the roaring river … to the feathery ice crystals formed on the frozen earth … to the intimate perfection of an aging tree ... she loves it all.  Her pictures are as natural as nature itself, with no computer enhancements.

Elizabeth has a very wide range of subject matter in her art and enjoys discovering what she can create through not only photography but also oil paints.  Oil painting allows her to emphasize the mood of what she sees or feels and recreate it on canvas.  Her goal is to get the viewer to feel the cold winter’s day, experience the power of the rushing water, or sense the camaraderie of two lone trees in the mist.

Elizabeth works to conserve the natural resources of Hamilton County as the District Manager of the Hamilton County Soil & Water Conservation District, in the heart of the Adirondack Park.  In her free time, she enjoys the resources she works so hard to protect.  In 2005 she began entering art shows around the area and has been honored with a number of successes.  She was awarded “3rd Place Best In Show” at the 2005 Adirondack Artist Guild Juried Show in Saranac Lake.  In 2005, she won “1st Place Photographer” in the Speculator Art Show in July.  As the highlight of her career she was awarded the opportunity to have a solo artist exhibit at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts – North Gallery located in the Adirondack Craft Center this past November.  The future holds a busy schedule for her in 2006 as she was honored with being selected to join several other women artist for an exhibit at LARAC from September 21 – October 28, 2006 (opening September 21).  Her work will also be exhibited in 2006-07 at the Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts in Blue Mountain Lake.  Check her website, www.adirondackcabincreations.com, for more details and also to view a large selection of her artwork.

Copies of her photographs or print of her oil paintings can be purchased directly from the artist or at several local stores in the area:  Speculator Department Store, The Family Tree, Speculator NY; Old Forge Hardware Store, Haderondah Company, Old Forge, NY; and Adirondack Gifts, Remsen, NY.