JoEllyn Loehr featured at college gallery

Black Butte Ranch resident JoEllyn Loehr retires this year as chairman of the BBR Art Guild's artists' talks. She provided speakers and several exhibitors at The Gallery at The Lodge at BBR. She, too, is an artist and two years ago was one of the guest speakers.

Last year she was commissioned by BBR to create pieces for the new welcome center. She created something personal about Sisters Country with seven abstract representations of wings of local butterflies.

Loehr's work is displayed at another local venue.

Central Oregon Community College is displaying her work in the Rotunda Gallery of Barber Library through the end of July. An artist's reception is Thursday, June 24, from 4 to 6 p.m. From there her work travels to Sisters Public Library in August.

Her career as an artist started after she transitioned from working in a more technical field.

"I took a painting class in the mid '80s and it was a disaster," she said. "I could not figure out what to do or how to do it. I decided in 1995 that I wanted to go to art school. I'd been a graphic designer and worked with color, but it didn't have the freedom I wanted. I went to Pacific Northwest College of Art and took every class I could, even in the summers. I had to do the basic courses, nothing on the computer, it didn't have the same physical engagement."

Her husband, Frank Buehler, also had a technical career, as an engineer.

"He's one of my best critics, because he comes at it from a different point of view," Loehr said. "He looks at color relationships, shape relationships and he helps me come up with the title."

Black Butte Ranch Art Guild member Lynda Sullivan noted her reaction to Loehr's abstract work.

"Abstract art is never something I really enjoyed," Sullivan said. "When she talked about it (for the Art Guild a couple years ago), the passion of the artist hit me and I started to like it. Now I can tell you what I like or don't like in an abstract piece, although I don't know

why."