Marjorie Clearwater, a landscape painter trained in the techniques long before the term en plein air was fashionable locally, continues to find painting in nature a challenge.  “The more I learn, the more it seems there is yet to learn.”

“My artistic background is not filled with academic credentials, nor a list of ribbons won.  My education has been a joyful ride of ‘taking chances’.  I began teaching when I really didn’t know much more than the students; I opened an art gallery and survived for six years on no other income but teaching and painting pretty pictures for the tourists.”

These days she spends the summer painting along the river or at the edge of the fields near her home in the rural town of Ucon, Idaho.  For a week each year she joins the Snake River Plein Air Painters to paint somewhere with different vistas.  “During the cold of winter, I draw, read about painting, and whine until January.  From then until warm weather I paint from the nature sketches, again “taking chances.” as I throw out the comfort of the tried and true and experiment.” 

"Art keeps us alive by always having a new door to open."