Artists

Pam Bidelman: Paintings

Jewelry
Patty Conlin
Sacha
Lolly Hinkle

Painting
Karen Knutson
Richard Graves
Pam Bidelman
Cynthia F. Bergman
Charlotte Laxen
Bill Anderson

Music
Amy Kortuem

Pottery
Kristin Lemieux
Sharon Miller
Dennis McLaughlin
Nicole Roberts Hoiland

Photography
Maude Metcalf
Jon Smithers

Fabrics
Shawn Jeanne
Patricia Freiert

Stone Carving
Liam Anderson

Artisan Soap
Amy Brooks

Handcrafted Cards
Jan Jordan

Woodcarving
David-Nancy Allan

Garden Art
Anne Hoffman

I am a 64 year old woman who has lived with my family and worked in Saint Peter, Minnesota for over thirty-five years. About fifteen years ago, I began a tentative and then a quite earnest effort to learn to draw and paint. I remain a self taught artist, but one who is supported and encouraged by long standing relationships with other artists in the Saint Peter area. Although I was educated and worked as a social worker, I am now very happy to identify as a working artist. I am among the fortunate who have an opportunity for a “second” life doing what I want to do each day as an artist.

Over the years, I worked with a range of media and eventually settled on oils as my primary medium. Life drawing remains a strong secondary interest that under girds and informs my paintings of abstracted female figures. The paintings seem to emerge from my history of relationships with beautiful and complex women and the varieties of roles and presentation that women play out in the world. I think that the women in “my world” are quiet and observers of events. More importantly, I paint to experience the application of color and the emergence of psychological and emotional themes in the paintings. The process most often seems to have its own imperative over which I have little control. My most recent paintings recall the books of fairy tales I loved as a child, although, in my mind, the themes are current in our world. Recently, I have been experimenting with pure abstraction which seems to me a natural and joyous way to express whatever I happen to be thinking about at the time.