To Err is Human...to Plein Air is Divine
11/01/2024 09:55AM ● By Amelia Davis
Photos courtesy of Ann Feldman.
After moving to Steamboat Springs, Ann Feldman’s life changed–that is, her artistic life. If asked 30 years ago where she would be, she might doubt the truth – the leap from a Chicago-dweller with an MBA to a Colorado painter is a long one, even with detours: working for Project Hope in Costa Rica, traveling internationally for business and returning to Chicago. After her globetrotter lifestyle ended with the beginning of a family, she went to the School of the Art Institute in Chicago to be trained as a painter, finding her impressionistic style in the process.
However, unlike the classical seascape-and-countryside-dominated view of impressionism, Ann moved into the wilderness of Colorado and hasn’t looked back. “When I was in Chicago, I was mostly indoors in a very controlled environment. A person would sit under the lights for me and everything would be just so,” Ann says. “But I've always loved the West. I've always loved Colorado. From coming here every year for decades, I knew there was a draw out here. So when I came out here, all at once I decided I'm not going to be inside anymore. I'm going to go outside. So now I put all my painting gear into my backpack and I go outside. It's a completely different style and environment...it's a new challenge for me.”
Ann is currently represented by the Hildt Galleries in Chicago, the J. Petter Galleries in Saugatuck, Michigan, The Broadmoor Galleries in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Mary Williams Fine Art in Boulder, Colorado. She is available to contact or to commission through her website, https://www.annfeldmanartist.com/, and you can view her art on her Instagram @ann.feldman.artist.
After moving to Steamboat Springs, Ann Feldman’s life changed–that is, her artistic life. If asked 30 years ago where she would be, she might doubt the truth – the leap from a Chicago-dweller with an MBA to a Colorado painter is a long one, even with detours: working for Project Hope in Costa Rica, traveling internationally for business and returning to Chicago. After her globetrotter lifestyle ended with the beginning of a family, she went to the School of the Art Institute in Chicago to be trained as a painter, finding her impressionistic style in the process.
However, unlike the classical seascape-and-countryside-dominated view of impressionism, Ann moved into the wilderness of Colorado and hasn’t looked back. “When I was in Chicago, I was mostly indoors in a very controlled environment. A person would sit under the lights for me and everything would be just so,” Ann says. “But I've always loved the West. I've always loved Colorado. From coming here every year for decades, I knew there was a draw out here. So when I came out here, all at once I decided I'm not going to be inside anymore. I'm going to go outside. So now I put all my painting gear into my backpack and I go outside. It's a completely different style and environment...it's a new challenge for me.”
Along with her new artistic practice came a refinement of her objective for her work. “My goal is to evoke some sort of emotional connection with the viewer, for them to feel like they are in that space and time and perhaps feel what I was feeling at that time,” Ann says. “I'm trying to bring an emotional response into my painting. I think that impressionism allows you to do that because there's there's unanswered questions in impressionism – it's a little fuzzy, the viewer has to bring in their own thoughts to finish up the painting, to say what's really happening here. There's a lot of open-endedness in that kind of painting.”
Ann is currently represented by the Hildt Galleries in Chicago, the J. Petter Galleries in Saugatuck, Michigan, The Broadmoor Galleries in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Mary Williams Fine Art in Boulder, Colorado. She is available to contact or to commission through her website, https://www.annfeldmanartist.com/, and you can view her art on her Instagram @ann.feldman.artist.