On the Spot

Salt Lake City’s Colleen Howe

Colleen Howe

Colleen Howe

A native of American Fork, Utah who grew up in southwestern Montana,Colleen Howe studied painting at Brigham Young University and the University of Utah. Howe works in paint and pastel and is known equally for her skills as an instructor and her talent as an artist.Unexpected Harmony, an exhibit of 40 of her new pastel paintings will be showing at the Springville Museum of Art Museumduring the month of January. This spring she will teach a ten-day workshop in southern France. The workshop is open to painters and non-painters alike and a few spots are still available. For more information go tocolleenhowe.com

What hangs above your mantel?

Above my mantel is a painting I did about 10 years ago. It is a view from the southern end of the island of Maui looking north toward the other end of the island and the volcano mountain. I also have two very small LeConte Stewart watercolor studies flanking the larger painting. They all make for good viewing on a cold winter day!

What is your favorite building in Utah?

A favorite building of mine all my life is a little yellow brick home, probably built around 1900 just north of Smithfield, Utah. I have watched it driving by for 50 years now, going from a snug little three room home to beginning to lose its first bricks about 5 years ago. Now it is almost nearly all fallen down. I did stop once while it was still in good shape and took a tour of the inside, hoping the landowner would not come and chase me away. I felt the sense of history and imagined the lives that had lived there. I am glad I stopped.

What is the most memorable exhibit you’ve seen recently? 

In September I went to New York City and got to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was alone and was able to take all the time I wanted! The Impressionists exhibit was way back in the corner through the construction and behind the Egyptian history area, but for me, well worth the hassle. Sargent’s “Madame X” was on display, plus several Cassatt’s, and other wonderful paintings. But the best was that an all-time favorite painting of mine was on display, a river scene by Twachtman (the study and the larger painting). I was in heaven!

 

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