Category: Featured Work

Susan Luckey Higdon, Tracy Leagjeld and Sarah B. Hansen opened a shared exhibit, “Connections”, at Tumalo Art Co., April 3, from 3-7pm during the Old Mill District First Friday Gallery Walk. The exhibit will be up through April 2026.

The three friends have been painting together en plein air since 2019 in the Central Oregon Cascades. Each fall, they gather for the annual trip, camping for several nights, spending their days painting on site, immersed in the landscape. At the heart of their tradition is connection—to one another, to the creative process, and to nature herself. Returning home, each artist carries fresh inspiration and a renewed sense of purpose into the studio, completing more deeply felt works that reflect the shared experience and the landscape that shaped it. Plein air paintings, made within speaking distance of each other, are shown along with larger studio pieces.

Painting plein air is a way of seeing deeply. While working as quickly as possible to chase the light, the artist also slows down and notices details that would otherwise be overlooked. The three agree that after being outside painting, “we’re both exhilarated and exhausted. There’s really nothing like it.”

Stillness, is the title of my May 2024 exhibit at Tumalo Art Co. in Bend, Oregon. Once again glass artist Nancy Becker and I have teamed up to show our work together.

With a similar sensibility for color and a shared awe of what is communicated by nature, we enjoy seeing our work displayed together. Designing the gallery’s exhibit space with 2D and 3D pieces leads to a stunning synchronicity as the artworks ‘speak’ to each other. For both of us, natures hush and deep stillness has inspired this art.

This body of my new work comes out of a summer and fall of exploring mountain lakes, creeks and rivers near my home. Camping allowed me to contemplate spots again and again in different light and weather,leading to deep connection and moments of awe. Sifting through sketches and photos, and deciding which compositions called me the most, I began the process of bringing these moments in time to life in the studio. Color, light, texture, shapes…I am drawn to complex interactions and want to communicate what I see in a way that captures the spirit of the place, showing accurate mood and detail, but working toward simplicity. All of these paintings challenged me. But in pushing through there is a sense of arrival. Like seeing a dear friend.

The exhibit is up through the end of May in Bend’s Old Mill District at Tumalo Art Co.  The artist-run gallery is open seven days a week, from 10am-7pm Monday through Saturday and 11am-6pm on Sundays. It is a beautiful space and the show is well worth seeing in person as a whole. Nancy and I worked together to place the art so that it can tell its story. This in itself is a work of art.

Most of the work in this exhibit is available in the Tumalo Art Co. online store.

One year after my last show at Tumalo Art Co. in Bend, Oregon, I am opening another exhibit there with paintings of the water I looked deeply into during a summer visiting rivers and lakes in Oregon. Last year Tumalo Art Co. was actually closed during April and May, but I had my show on the walls anyway. So this year, having survived one of the most difficult years our country has ever experienced, it is a positive milestone to mount a show again in April with a grouping of paintings that represent breaking through to new territory in my work.

These paintings have taken me further along the path of depicting the patterns water over stone. Water—as it flows over rocks of varied colors and sizes. The reflections shimmering on the surface. I am mesmerized by the both the design complexity and simplicity of these waters. The yin and yang. The song. The dance. Above and below. Creating abstraction through composition, slightly losing context, is challenging and thrilling to me. To render the scene my marks remain impressionistic but fairly representational.

Several of the places I visited in the summer and fall of 2020 were visited by catastrophic wildfire, all in one weekend in September. As a life-long Oregonian these watersheds are dear to me, so having been able to be at these places just weeks before is even more precious. The upper South Santiam river, which I have now painted many times, was spared, while the North Santiam watershed bore huge losses. The geology of the area, giving the creek and river beds a mosaic of multi-colored stones is marvelous to me. We discovered Soda Creek on a warm July day. A hidden gem down a logging road. The gentle undulations of water-grooved peach-colored sandstone with water turning the color of celadon as it flowed over took my breath away.

It took me awhile to figure out how to approach painting these places. Finally I came up with the compositions I wanted to bring to life— from the South Santiam, Umpqua River, Odell Lake, and another crystalline stream, Jamison Creek in the Sierras.

“Water Over Stone” opens April 2 from 4-7pm at Tumalo Art Co. in Bend Oregon’s Old Mill District with a Covid-safe reception and continues through the month.

Susan Luckey Higdon and Tracy Leagjeld team up for a stunning show at Tumalo Art Co in Bend Oregon’s Old Mill District, featuring their new work of lakes, mountains and streams in Oregon’s high Cascade mountains. Both artists love exploring and sketching or painting in the outdoors are drawn to many of the same places. Their color sense and desire to paint loosely and of their impressions of a scene are similar.

Tracy and Susan had admired each others artwork for some time before finally meeting while hiding in a hallway during an fund-raiser where both of their art was being auctioned. They became friends and were part of an art mentoring group, which eventually led to partnering as owners of Tumalo Art Co. in Bend, Oregon. The idea of doing this show together came to them during a camping trip in the Cascade mountains last fall. There weather was wet, but they still went to their favorite places at Sparks and Hosmer and other lakes, and the Deschutes River.

Tracy primarily spends her time doing monotypes on board, but can also be seen painting small plein air studies all over the Northwest, from coast, to gorge to mountains. Many of these small paintings are later made into larger monotypes. Her distinctive style of creating her marks with printmaking rollers keeps her images loose, energetic and colorful.

Susan uses acrylic paints and works on cradled birch board. She paints intuitively in an impressionistic style, painting color on thickly and then wiping it off, building up layers. Using composition as a tool to narrow and refine the view, she focuses on pattern and color, which makes many of her images feel semi-abstracted. “This approach to seeing nature has limitless possibilities,” says Susan.

Due to the COVID-19 virus, Tumalo Art Co. will not host an opening reception for the April, “Shared Vision” show, and is temporarily closed to the public, but the art will be up on the walls at the gallery through April. Art may be purchased using Tumalo Art Co.’s online shopping cart. Contact Susan by email to see the art…it can be arranged by appointment in person, or virtually.