ELLEN ELMES
“Art has always been my language for expressing life experiences, love for my family, and intrigue with the natural world. Life itself provides changing perspectives and highs and lows of emotions that push my watercolor brush across the paper. When I am swept up by something going on around or within me, whether it be political, personal, or purely being enamored of a beautiful thing, making my art is the best way I know to communicate the passion. I simply love to paint.
"As a muralist, I have supervised and participated in painting four community-created murals as well as nine acrylic murals on my own. I feel that our intuitive voices are so vital, particularly now in our world of excessive and confused information, that it is particularly important to participate together in creative dialogue.
"In recent years, I’ve enjoyed taking my art overseas from my Virginia mountaintop home in Bearwallow on Jewell Ridge to the hills of Scotland. Through my work as a visual arts instructor at Southwest Virginia Community College, I was an Artist-in-Residence for a year in Aberdeen, Scotland, and a team teacher for a U.S. State Department grant program in Ivanovo, Russia. Common Ground Traditions Weeks in Westminster, Maryland, and in Ayreshire, Scotland, are two of the many engagements in workshop teaching that my husband Don and I have enjoyed in recent years. Best of all, however, is being part of our arts community here at home through the Appalachian Arts Center.”
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