Page 40 - Flathead Beacon // 8.17.16

EVENTS 42 MOVIE REVIEWS 43 SIDE DISH 46 PAWS & CLAWS 48 Arts&Entertainment
Deborah Berniklau’s “A Sudden Detour.” Deborah Berniklau’s “The Courtship.”
Capturing the Essence of the Old West Artist Deborah Berniklau headlines Hockaday’s timeless legacy show
WBY JUSTIN FRANZ OF THE BEACON
HAT IF A CARPENTER LOST the use of their hands? Or a musician lost the ability to
hear? What would they do and how would they move forward without the ability to do what they loved?
That was the predicament facing art- ist and illustrator Deborah Berniklau when she lost the ability to see clearly two decades ago after she was diagnosed
with Keratoconus, an incurable eye dis- ease that can cause distorted vision.
“It was incredibly scary because my vision was gone so fast,” she said.
But Berniklau has persevered, and thanks to a number of operations, the New Mexico oil painter is back at the drawing board carving out a unique spot in Western American art. Her work will be displayed as part of the Hocka- day Museum of Art’s “A Timeless Leg- acy – Women Artists of Glacier National
Park” exhibit running through Sept. 10. Berniklau was on hand for a special pre- miere event at the Hockaday on Aug. 13.
Berniklau grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and rst practiced her art with chalk on the sidewalk in front of her parents’ home. Even today, Ber- niklau remembers how much she loved to draw animals – especially horses – as a child. Seeing how much she loved art, Berniklau’s dad enrolled his daughter in art classes, which cemented a passion for
painting and drawing. Later she studied at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California before becoming an illustrator. During her career she worked for Disney, Warner Brothers and NASA.
But her career came to a sudden and dramatic halt in 1991 when she was diag- nosed with Keratoconus. Berniklau lost her eyesight in just six weeks. Discour- aged but not defeated, Berniklau under- went a number of surgeries to stabilize
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AUGUST 17, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM