{"id":2031,"date":"2011-03-17T10:10:40","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T10:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=2031"},"modified":"2023-11-13T13:50:14","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T19:50:14","slug":"mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/mark\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Knudsen & Leslie Thomas: Another Look"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the month of February we published a series of posts taking another look at the artist couples featured in our February edition of 15 Bytes. We saved one of these posts — on Mark Knudsen and Leslie Thomas — until this week to coincide with the opening of Mark Knudsen’s exhbit, Horizon Event, which opens at Phillips Gallery<\/a> on Friday. See more of Mark’s work at markknudsenart.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"Leslie<\/a>

Leslie Thomas & Mark Knudsen in their shared studio. Photo by Bill Fulton<\/p><\/div>\n

Kemosabe \u2026 that\u2019s what Mark Knudsen \u201cmade\u201d Leslie Thomas call him early on in their 12-year relationship. That loving and teasing back-and-forth is still evident today in the couple that spends most of their day together, either in the studio, or on the road collecting material for their art. \u00a0Leslie says her \u201coutlook was developed under Mark, and that makes us dove-tail easily.\u201d As they work together in the shared studio at King\u2019s Cottage, they check on each other often, appreciating the helpfulness of a fresh pair of eyes. Even when not in the studio, they talk about art constantly, leafing through art publications together at home.<\/p>\n

\"Leslie<\/a>

Leslie Thomas and Mark Knudsen paint in their shared studio at Kings Cottage. Photos by Bill Fulton<\/p><\/div>\n

They try (stressing the word \u2018try\u2019) to maintain a routine of being at the studio by 10 a.m. and leaving around 4:30. That\u2019s still a pretty lengthy time to spend painting, so they have taken up yoga as way to stretch their bodies and brains during the day. Often they bring their dogs to the studio with them.<\/p>\n

Leslie feels very lucky to have started painting again, to be living her dream life-style, something that has happened since meeting Mark. He has been, and continues to be her mentor. When she earns accolades, she says that any glory reflects on him. He keeps encouraging her and thinks she should try printing at some point.<\/p>\n

\"Leslie<\/a>

Leslie Thomas stands in front of one of her finished works. Photo by Bill Fulton<\/p><\/div>\n

When Leslie suffers from what she calls \u2018the mid-painting blues\u2019, Mark provides input. Sometimes they disagree on each other\u2019s advice, but Leslie says, \u201cwe take turns pushing each other from behind.\u201d Disagreement doesn\u2019t ever morph into jealousy, though, as they are very much for each other\u2019s success. \u00a0The only incompatibility (and Leslie is quick to say that that could be too strong a word) is the camper they bought. She dreamed of going out on the road together and painting, but he pretty much is done with that, having camped a lot earlier in his life.<\/p>\n

Marks sees them as being on parallel roads based on their lives and experience before they met. Their philosophy about plain old living, their intellectual pursuits, the subject of art,\u00a0 is very similar. He acknowledges that it would have been harder to achieve that kind of compatibility had they met when they were younger. This is a second marriage for both of them \u2013their previous spouses were not artists, but were interested in art.<\/p>\n

\"Mark<\/a>

Mark Knudsen stands in front of one of his paintings. Photo by Bill Fulton<\/p><\/div>\n

Their outlook on life and art provides a rich and nurturing environment for their relationship to continue strengthening, and reflects what we have learned from all the couples who were interviewed for our February 15 Bytes issue. To paraphrase a very old song that some of the couples might never have heard \u2026 \u201cLove and art, love and art, go together to enrich the heart\u201d.<\/p>\n

Leslie\u2019s work can be seen at the Patrick Moore Gallery. Mark Knudsen’s <\/em>Horizon Event opens this Friday at Phillips Gallery<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another look at one of the artist couples feature in our February edition, saved for this week to coincide with Mark Knudsen’s exhibit at Phillips Gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1520,"featured_media":2025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[733,538],"class_list":["post-2031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-visual_arts","tag-leslie-thomas","tag-mark-knudsen"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/LeslieThomasMarkKnudsenBlog1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 02:05:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1520"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2031"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70607,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031\/revisions\/70607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}