More Arivaca Artists, Past and Present
July 1, 2009
Just look around, and you will see more artists than you ever knew were here in Arivaca.
Gloria Champine has lived in Arivaca since the mid-1980s, when she came here for her health. Gloria had been a gallery owner and well-known Western artist in Wyoming. Her childhood was spent in Montana, on the Canadian border. One of her first memories is of drawing on a blackboard the image she saw in a painting on her grandparents’ wall. Her grandfather was so impressed with the five-year-old’s innate artistic talent that he encouraged her to pursue art from then on. “I couldn’t be happy unless I was painting, ” she admits, and would crawl up a tree and paint. She always knew, she says, how to render the size of things. She understands perspective. Her horses and wild animals—elk, deer, birds—all have perfect proportion, no matter the angle at which they are represented. She notices how the light changes from day to day and creates “postcard moments. ” Gloria has endless curiosity about things and even now, with advancing age and arthritis, she does as much as she can. Her first subject and interest was people and horses. After some excellent art instruction in high school, she took design and painting classes in college, as well as taking classes from private instructors. She has lived in many different places, but moved to Greybill, Wyoming with her children after her husband died. It was there that she opened a gallery called Rustic Reflections, which she had for fifteen years, and began teaching. “The pleasure of painting can be had by anyone, ” she says, “Why not see beauty as it is? ” Her genuine pleasure in art is infectious. She is a realist, in artistic terms, or as she says, a “responsive artist. ” She believes that her art comes from a deep place inside her, and doesn’t do it to impress anyone. Nonetheless, her wild animals and mountains are amazing. The most truly beautiful picture of Baboquivari Peak that I have ever seen was by Gloria. “A lot goes into artistic creativity—what makes it go from craft to art is the emotional content and universal appeal. That is the ultimate goal. ” In terms of peer approval, her goals were realized with some national art awards while in Wyoming. But with exposure to the chemicals in paint, especially oils, she became sensitive and decided to move to a warmer climate for the sake of her hands. She found Arivaca in the usual way, through a realtor, but after being here a while she knew this was home. “This is a healing place, ” she says, “that is what it has been for me. ” And now it’s start-again time for Gloria, whose new chosen surname is Chapugh, an amalgamation of her name and her former husband’s. She said, “the beauty of being an artist never leaves you, only your health, or your will. ”
Jerry Patton has been carving mesquite quail for years, and most everyone has one. He has been part of the Artists’ Coop for five years. He got involved in art because his father was an oil painter of western landscapes. He tried that too, giving away the paintings to any number of friends who still have them hanging on their walls. Now he mostly carves mesquite quail. He got started carving on a big elm log that had been thrown away. Using a claw hammer and chisel he carved a four-foot long seal. After that it was just mesquite and he has probably done hundreds of the little quail as well as rabbits and other animals. Their warm patina invites you to hold them. Besides carving Jerry does barbed wire designs such as windmills and bull heads. He has all his own designs of those but what he likes best to do is commission work. He has had his carvings in a number of galleries in Tubac including the Manos Gallery. Art is what he enjoys, but his life’s work was in the military. He was in the Air Force and Air National Guard and was a Flight Engineer for 19 years, as well as being a crew chief for any number of airplanes. In 1979 he and his late wife moved to Arivaca where they built a place and he put up his own windmill. Jerry had been hunting down in this part of the world in the 1950s and always liked it. During those years he didn’t do much in the way of art, but when he retired he had time to do it. Recently he inherited his dad’s paint box, but he doesn’t want to do that any more. He’s friends with arthritis now, and it is hard to carve and work the barbed wire. Perhaps if you want one of the little quail, don’t put it off any longer.
Ellen Dursema got her love of crafts from her mother, who was very crafty, and from her father the wannabe inventor. “Working with my hands came naturally, ” she says. She had taken some art classes, but in college she majored in social work. The art won out, and she began finding jobs in that line—once she worked at a store making feather hat bands and jewelry.
She got into doing leather craft when she was hanging out with some bikers and started making chaps and other things for them. She acquired the equipment gradually and taught herself. At one point she moved to Memphis and got a job at Tandy leather, where they soon had her teaching classes. When she came to Tucson she worked for James Leather on 4th Avenue. She decided she could make a living with leather crafts by herself, so she made up an inventory and began selling at fairs around Tucson, and renaissance fairs in California. She had a booth at the Womens’ Center in San Francisco. For five years she and Harry traveled in their bus all up and down the Pacific Coast. Her best fair was the Michigan Womens’ Music Festival. Shortly before she went to that one she dreamed that she should make loin cloths, so quickly she made a batch of those that sold out! She made over $5000 at that festival! She came to Arivaca in the late 80s and once she started having kids it seemed better not to travel, but to settle down. She got involved with the Arts Council in its earliest years and helped start the Artists’ Coop. Now she still does some leather work but mostly she is into tie dye. She got into that when someone gave her a tie dyed baby item. “There can never be too many rainbows in the world, ” she says. “ It’s fun and most people love it. ” Her intention in everything she makes is to help and to heal. Her favorite thing is to teach people how to make tie dye. To that end, she is planning a Tie Dye Workshop on July 22 at the Arivaca Community Center. (If you come by the week before you can tie the item, then dye it on the 22nd)
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