Debora Shurtleff

Deborah Shurtleff is Gallery Moab’s Guest Artist for November. Her wide range of painting interests include the genres of Western Landscape, Equestrian, Native American, and Portraiture. She has been influenced by her love of nature and people in the western culture. Deborah enjoys taking a blank canvas and watching the subject emerge. With that comes the joy of creation and sharing her art with others. She loves to oil paint with brush and palette knife using texture and value to add dimension and depth.

She defines her style as contemporary realism and has exhibited her art in shows and galleries in Utah and surrounding states for the last 17 years. She also belongs to an art group in Draper, Utah called South Willow Artist Group (SWAG) with Mentor Richard Horrocks. Deborah attended Utah State University under the tutelage of Glen Edwards.

She has been inspired by artists Howard Terpning, Minerva Teichert, and many others. Deborah feels that an artist is always evolving, changing, and learning. It takes lifetime but she believes it’s so worth it and awesome!

Also in November, the gallery is also featuring one of our members, Sarah Hamingson. Recently, Sarah wrote, “Art has been part of my life as far back as I can remember. Drawing, painting, and making puppets got me through my early schooling, and then I set off to see the country. Sidetracked, I only created art intermittently for a period until I moved to Moab in 1996. The creative juices began to flow again and for a while I worked with watercolors and clay. Then I took a pastel class, and knew that I had found my medium. I took as many workshops with pastel masters as I could, and set out to cover miles of paper in pastel, learning as I did.

Since that time, I have remained obsessed with color, shape, and texture, and the landscape around me. I love the vibrancy and immediateness of pastel, and I love the joy of getting my hands right in the pigment. I can often be found in my studio, lost in the pastels, or out hiking and exploring, finding the subject and inspiration for my next painting. My subject matter is mainly the natural world around me, with all its glory and joy and variation. Through my paintings I hope to share this beauty with you.”

Join us during the November Art Walk, Saturday, November 9, from 5-8 pm for a reception for the artists. Gallery Moab is located at 87 N Main Street. Come on in!.

Work by gallery artists can been seen at gallerymoab.com and on Facebook or call 435-355-0024

Diann Laing was born in Hollywood, California in 1941. As a youngster she loved to draw and paint. She would illustrate in pencil, watercolor, pastels, crayons, and oil. When she graduated from high school, she was accepted at the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles to be part of a medical illustration cohort to train for that profession. However, Diann was born with double vision and the stress on her eyes with the intense demands of rigorous art classwork forced her to change her goals and leave art as a career.

Diann Laing

Diann then attended Los Angeles State College and graduated with a B.S. in health sciences. Her education continued over the next many years where she obtained two masters degrees and a Ph.D in Anatomy and Physiology. However, her love of drawing and painting had not truly waned and her mother gave her a French easel while Diann was still in college. She attached a gift note saying: “one day, I know that you may want to paint again and when you do, here is your office”.

When Diann retired from the University, she remembered the stored gift. She would once again happily venture back into the painting world. Diann read an article about plein air painting and decided that avenue would be a perfect fit since she loved spending time outdoors. The paintings you see offered in the Big Horn Gallery at Dead Horse Point visitor’s center are a reflection of her current travels and explorations.

Gail L. Denton , Fine Artist and Plein Air Landscape Painter.
From an early age, Gail traveled the world with her family. But it was her formative years in Utah that brought a love of the landscape to her heart.

Traveling the lntermountain West in her younger years, her back seat window view at her command, she watched the seasons, the mountains, canyons and valleys whip by. She saw Glen Canyon before it was lost to water.

Gail L. Denton

Bryce and Zion before the roads went asphalt. The Grand Canyon before guard rails. Cedar City when it was a sleepy town with cheese factories that sold their wares to government inspectors (like her father.)

So it is no surprise that ten years ago, when her interest turned to plein air (outdoor) painting, she naturally gravitated back to Utah for those familiar broad, open-skied, red rocked, deep canyoned, aspen speckled ramparts.

The current showing of her work at the Dead Horse State Park’s Big Horn Gallery is a grand survey of the region which includes Dead Horse State Park, Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, and the beauty of the Intermountain West. Exhibit from Nov 1st to Dec 31st 9am - 5pm .

Meet the Artists on November 1st from 12-2pm at the Bighorn Gallery located inside the Dead Horse Point visitor center.