Artist shows work at High Desert Hair

Artist Connie Mulligan is currently showing her landscapes at High Desert Hair Company next to Ray's Food Place in Sisters.

Mulligan's art has toured several galleries through the 65 years she has been painting. Many of the artists she studied with are no longer with us, people like Don Ricks, known for his still lifes.

Mulligan's favorite subject is the ocean. One of her favorite seascape painters, also gone, is Harvey von Baeseman of Portland, whom she studied with for many years.

Ever since she was a child, Connie Mulligan knew she had it in her to become an artist.

"I wanted to paint," she said. "I was just a natural born person to paint. I used to tell my dad when we were riding along the coast: I know I can paint that," Mulligan said. "When I was graduating from high school I wanted to continue my education, but my family couldn't afford that kind of thing."

Like many artists, she started creating her work when she was young just for her family.

"There were four of us," she said, "and I used to entertain my two brothers and sister by drawing the cartoons they liked in the front room. I also drew scenes on the chalkboards in grammar school. That's the earliest I can remember."

In high school, she did watercolors and entered art contests. Her high school art teacher encouraged her. She remembers being in a contest where they were asked to draw something showing contrast. She created a piece that was unique for that era.

"Mine was different from all the others. The others all had different themes, but I drew my own hands holding a pen drawing something for advertising," she recalled.

As an adult, a Christmas gift, a book about oil painting, opened a door to her first exposure to the lessons she had never been able to afford as a child. In later years she was finally able to study with the professionals.

"I love anything relating to nature. I've always loved the ocean. When I was just a kid, I had told my dad I could paint the coast. When I got my art book, I grabbed the book and painted the ocean."

It was not only love of painting, but relief from stress that lead her to paint.

"When I was in real estate I came home after a busy day to sit down and paint," Mulligan said. "Painting can be good therapy for anyone."

Her unique style displays an occasional use of texture in some of her paintings, contrasted by thin application of her favorite medium, oils, in others.

"My children have artistic talent, but use it in other ways. They did not follow in my footsteps as painters," she said.

However, she often took her children on trips to scenic locations to watch her paint.

"When my daughter Kathy was 14, I took her to The Rustic Inn in Glen Ellen, California in the Valley of the Moon where Jack London used to hang out. The Inn is no longer there. We lived near there at the time and I went up to paint the Inn for a contest. It was literally a rustic place in the sixties with dust-covered glasses, cobwebs flowing between them, sitting high on the shelves."

Artists have a special connection with the world as they see it.

"Every day has beautiful scenes. I never go down a road in a car for any other reason except to see a scene to paint. I just admire all of nature's beauties," Mulligan said.

Her husband, Harold, is a Pearl Harbor survivor and her staunch supporter.