“Every painting is a new adventure because I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Karen Leigh says from inside her bright, colorful studio nestled in a cozy neighborhood on the east side of Kalispell.
Leigh has embarked on countless adventures — and inspired many others to do the same — during her lifetime as a professional painter. Toting her sketchbook and brushes, the Kalispell artist has explored the streets and alleys of cities around the world and the vast wilds of Glacier National Park and other scenic landscapes, each time summoning the creativity and keen depiction that have come to define her watercolor paintings and made her an icon in the art community.
Last week Leigh was back at it, finishing her latest creation in between teaching art classes at Flathead Valley Community College, where she has been an instructor for over 40 years. In the back of her mind she was also readying herself for this week’s event at the Hockaday Museum of Art, where she once served as the executive director. On Thursday, March 19, Leigh will set up an easel and paint in the Hockaday’s main gallery in front of spectators as part of the museum’s final session of its 2015 Winter Art Maker Series. The event begins at 5:30 p.m., at which point Leigh will plunge into a 90-minute session that will showcase her ability to paint and teach at the same time.
For many artists, the pressure of painting in front of a crowd may seem daunting, but not Leigh.
“After awhile you get used to it,” she says. “I tell people it’s like cooking a gourmet dinner for people you’ve never met with recipes you’ve never tried in somebody else’s kitchen. You just hope it works.”
Staying with the cooking analogy, Leigh is a master chef.
She grew up in Great Falls with a passion for artwork early on. It helped that she grew up down the street from the studio of Charles Marion Russell, Montana’s iconic Old West artist.
“I remember walking down and peering through the window of his old studio,” Leigh says. “I would just stand there drooling over it as a kid.”
Like Russell, Leigh loved working with watercolors, and she began spending her free time painting anything and everything that caught her eye.
“There’s a magic about it. You don’t know how it will unfold. There’s a mystery there,” she said of watercolor painting. “For me it’s always a balance of control on one hand and letting go on the other hand. If it’s too controlled, it’s boring and everything looks alike. So you have to let go and let some magic happen.”
In the early 1970s, she moved to the Flathead Valley and planted roots. Her family had a rich history here. Her great grandfather was Cornelius Hedges, a well-known journalist, lawyer and judge in Montana. As fate would have it, Leigh’s studio today at the Eastside Brick looks out at the elementary school named after her great grandfather.
Arriving in Kalispell, she began teaching art classes at the community college while painting on the side. Pretty soon her distinct artwork garnered the attention of large audiences and began appearing in collections of Beringer Wineries and the Smithsonian, and earning praise in WATERCOLOR magazine. In 2003, she was selected as one of 20 “Ones to Watch” in the U.S. in the yearbook issue of WATERCOLOR MAGIC.
Perhaps her most notable accomplishment arrived in 2007, when she was selected to design an ornament for the White House Christmas Tree. Leigh was honored at a reception hosted by First Lady Laura Bush in Washington D.C.
The following two years she was also selected for inclusion in the C.M. Russell “Masters in Miniature” invitational, an annual event showcasing the work of the best artists in the state.
Leigh is unique for a Montana artist, especially one living on the doorstep of Glacier Park. Instead of painting breathtaking portraits of the abundant scenery, she prefers out-of-the-ordinary places and moments; a husband and wife sitting at the farmers market, a quiet alleyway, the cornered architecture of old European neighborhoods.
“It’s so beautiful here. I’m kind of intimidated by it. I go up to Glacier Park and I think, ‘how I can I make it more beautiful than it already is?’” she says. “I like to paint people. I like figures and cities and urban landscapes. I like architecture. I like edges.”
As she tells her students, there’s something eye-catching at every corner, even the mundane places.
“I spend a lot of time walking up and down the alleys. I have to be careful,” she says, smiling.
In recent years her efforts were focused on helping her daughter and granddaughter move to Kalispell and taking care of the affairs of a longtime friend who passed away. She didn’t paint for almost two years.
She returned to the easel in recent months and in some ways it felt like she was starting all over.
“It was hard to get back. I felt like I lost something there,” she says.
But Leigh followed the same advice she regularly gives her students.
“You just have to sit down and do something,” she says. “You don’t wait for inspiration.”
Day by day, the blank paper in her studio has transformed into the distinctive watercolor artwork that could only come at the hands of Karen Leigh.
For more information about Karen Leigh, visit http://www.karenleighart.com. For more information about the Hockaday presentation, visit http://www.hockadaymuseum.org.