McDonald brings silence
of snow with exhibition

by Claudia Leos
Observer Staff

While a snowstorm may not blow in for Gallery Night, attendees may still enjoy white scenery, as Harriett McDonald will bring it with her.

"It will be a cold night. I will have snow scenes at the show," McDonald said with a laugh while in her home in Santa Teresa, N.M.

"In a snow scene, I feel the silence and stillness and know that my breath is visible in this place and if I take a step there will be a soft sound and impression left behind that speaks of my passage there."

The Sanderson native was selected as the winner of a contest held to choose an artist's work to be used on the cover of invitations, postcards, and other memorabilia for Gallery Night.

"A committee looked at all the art, and that one just spoke to us and said everything about the area," said Keri Artzt, founder of the event. "The other pieces were great, and that one seemed to capture the beauty of the area and that's exactly what we wanted."

McDonald, whose work has been displayed at Kiowa Gallery and Custom Framing for years, has already sold the original work that is being used for Gallery Night.

"I have been exhibiting her work for years now, and she has been selling and her paintings are so real. I think that is what people like about her, she captures the Big Bend so well," she said.

McDonald describes herself as "a life-long resident of the Desert Southwest," with Santa Teresa being her home for the past six years. She grew up in El Paso, where she briefly attended the University of Texas at El Paso after her graduation from Ysleta High School. It was in El Paso where she spend most of her childhood, the time during which she discovered her talent.

"I painted my first painting when I was eight years old. My mother still has it, it is a painting of a desert road with a cactus on one side," McDonald said with a laugh. "I'm still painting things like that."

McDonald's mother was very instrumental in guiding her toward the world of art. Her mother, who is currently 80 years old, began painting at the age of 13 and continues to paint. McDonald began painting in her twenties and is basically self-taught.

"Although I have painted for over thirty years, when I begin a new piece I always feel like a novice," McDonald says in her biography, "I know that in my passage through this place I will discover things I did not know before, my colors I have never mixed, deliver passages of light in new ways, and be challenged with problems I have not encountered before."

Although landscapes are what most of her works have depicted, she does not claim to have any favorite scenes or motives of inspiration.

"I really can't say that I have a favorite because my mood changes from year to year," McDonald said. "I may be driving down the street and look out the left and see a tree... and inspiration comes from all kinds of places at all times, you just get it when you get it."

McDonald added that she loves the Big Bend and comes down and takes photo references.

"I have a huge filing system that I have as a reference of things, I am a studio painter and I work from my references and memory," McDonald said.

One of her trips to the Big Bend included a one-woman show at the Museum of the Big Bend in 1994. The show included works from the earliest to the most recent, gathered from various collections.

McDonald is an award-winning artist and has many works in private and institutional collections around the United States.

From the Alpine Observer
November 15-21, 2001

Copyright ©2002 Harriett McDonald. All rights reserved. Revised: March 01, 2004
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