About Louise – Louise Rae Williams Art

Louise Rae Williams: Her Life and Work 1947-2004

In a relatively short span of 20 years, from 1983 to 2003, Louise Rae Williams produced a nearly unprecedented volume of work. She sold, traded, and donated over 200 finished works to various public and private collections. Her total output in these two decades included over 1,000 individual pieces using various mediums, sizes and shapes. She averaged more than two exhibitions a year including 18 solo exhibitions and 27 two person and invitational exhibitions. She influenced thousands of art students while teaching at four colleges and from her studio. She accomplished her work by mastering a wide variety of mediums and techniques including oils, pastels, watercolors, print making, and mixed media using almost anything at hand as her canvas.

Louise was a western artist as most of her work was envisioned and completed in the western United States and remain in private and public collections in western states. She was born and lived in the west her entire life. But by no means did Louise fit the stereotypical description of a western artist of the Remington-Clymer romantic tradition nor of the Georgia O’Keefe western naturalist school. Rather Louise drew images of the contemporary western experiences and especially the impact of the western macho culture’s impact on women, wives, children and the environment. Her west included the alienated, angels, bird boys, victims of the Green River serial murderer, dead cows, children dreaming, the mentally ill hallucinating, family, erotic cloudscapes and the sensuality of existing. She made the west bigger and deeper than Remington’s representative vignettes and her control and use of color and light compare with those of Georgia O’Keefe.

Louise with Kathy Gore-Fuss & Amy Fisher

Mt. Stewart with Becky Frehse and others

The Early Years

Louise came into the world as Louise Rae Lyons:

“I was born in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1947 my father was working as a lineman for the telephone company and my parents moved from trailer to dumpy apartment as new lines were installed throughout the southwest. At two weeks of age, I no longer lived in the city whose bird namesakes rises from the ashes. None of this, however, is in my memory. Most of my childhood years I lived in a post war look alike houses in Denver, Colorado. As the children in these houses grew, so did the houses—sprouting new rooms, stories and landscaping.

I come from a family that makes things. My grandmother and mother were seamstresses. My maternal grandmother’s house contained my silent, stern grandfather and a joyous sense of creation. I made doll clothes, played dress up and chased my brothers while grandma and mom sewed, talked and played canasta. My dad was always working with his hands—hacking earth to dig a basement for the house with a pick ax, barn raising a cement block garage with his friends, installing a new furnace system. My parents valued craftsmanship and handwork; both occasionally drew—dad’s were schematic working drawings, mom drew some portraits. I was a shy child who liked to draw, paint, make pretend witches’ brew with my cousin, but also argued with my brother.”

After Louise graduated for Denver High School in 1965 nearly twenty years passed before her first major work appeared publicly. However, these were not uneventful years. As an early baby-boomer her life often corresponded with the tumultuous events associated with those years. She attended University of Northern Colorado in Greeley then transferred to San Jose State University. She graduated with Great Distinctions and Honors in Art. Ten years later she gained a second BA at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington with an emphasis on fine metals, painting and art history. She married and had two children, Mike and Lisa Williams (now Lisa Neal). The lives of her children’s’ growing experiences often served as themes in her work. She later divorced her husband, Bob Williams. Later she married Tom Lineham.

Motherhood’s Stark Reality: 1984-1987

Louise’s arrival in Ellensburg, Washington as a graduate student at Central Washington University in the Fall of 1982 marked the beginning of the high productivity period that would continue for two decades and confirm Louise’s exceptional talent. In a 1989 interview she admitted that she felt a sense of being behind schedule when she returned to graduate school at 37 after having children.

“While at graduate school in the early 1980’s I began to explore images of night such as dreams, romantic and parental love. These “Night Dramas” were two distinct bodies of work. The largest were expressionistic images of figures in beds on 5’x9’ paper executed in charcoal with pastel. These drawings portrayed profound experiences that usually occur on beds: birth, sex, reading to a child, sickness, dreaming, death. The second series was executed in vibrantly colored pastels on 30”x40” black paper. These images were of the more public night dramas occurring at parties and lounges. As I was also painting in oils, one huge painting called “Cul de Sac” (8’x16’) was an attempt to, in one painting, to “summarize” everything I wanted to express. Not surprisingly, a kernel of expressive need led to more paintings and drawings.” From her artist statement for her 2003 retrospective.

Louise came under the influence of some remarkable mentors in Ellensburg who inspired and encouraged the latent creativity ready to bubble to the surface. These included artist-faculty George Stillman, Bill Dunning and Cindy Krieble. All experienced tremendous artistic success during their long careers.

Her 1985 graduate show at CWU was provocative. It served notice of an incredible talent willing to take on the controversial issues of her day. In addition, she struck her audience with her mastery of light. A brilliant illumination like an aureole seemed to flow through and from within her many canvases.

Following her departure from the nourishing environs of the Kittitas Valley, in Washington State Louise and her family returned to the South Puget Sound area. She accepted a lecturer position at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. The garage in her two-floor suburban rental home served as her studio. From here her prodigious and provocative output continued.

“Intensely painting images of women, birth and mothering: A REAL FOCUS ON THE MADONA. Voices speak: rasping in the images religious, physical and Freudian symbolism borne with the relationship of mother to child. A sentimental obsession with babies obfuscated by questioning. I paint triplets (several sets), an old woman with quints dolls, a hostage with her baby, a girl baby being diapered by young boys and a birth. In supermarts dewy soft infants abound. I paint, I wonder why there? The answers, as often is true, questions—hope, rebirth, beauty, love? Visions of life’s continuity, the vulnerable infant self within, society’s (my) hope for the future and the blessed innocence of purity ooze out with the paint.”

Louise described her new setting and challenges in a November 19, 1985 letter to Ellensburg writer John Bennett:

“I’ve been trying to paint and draw and enter shows. Pushing the work a little, but the work seems to push back too much for most people so far. Also, I’ve been reading more consistently than before. Alice Walker, a biography of Diane Arbus (Patricia Bosworth) and just started I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Do you know Arbus’ photographs? She did the photo of a little blonde boy in Central Park holding a toy grenade with an incredible look of terror on his face. This book might be worth your perusal although it bothered me stylistically and was a bit gossipy.

. . .started typing in my room with the curtain open. I could see my neighbor standing in the light at her kitchen sink, then she saw I saw her and closed her curtain. I’m doing some Cul de Sac drawings. I don’t know these people so it’s safe. I’m getting to know the kids they are friendly and would tell me anything. Since that is the way of kids. Our neighbor girl found out I was an artist and made me a picture of a hand holding a brush that says “I love art.” Quite frankly, I’ve become even more convoluted in searching out pictures I’m making – yet spinning off in several directions. Possibly, because of a desire to find a paying market.”

Indeed while controversial and edgy artistic themes draw attention — sometimes praise, sometimes condemnation — they don’t often draw sales or people willing to hang them on their walls. It is the old artist’s dilemma of truth or profit. Louise faced it and resisted compromise in her material and subject matter. She never sacrificed her belief in herself as an artist or her honest communication through her artwork.

The local newspaper in reviewing one of Louise’s early shows in 1987 said: “Many of her paintings show unpleasantness, even in dealing with babies, and few or none show happiness. But they show intensity, and many of her painting show often near their centers, a great radiant light that seems to emanate from the figures.”

Busy as a mother, educator and artist her life turned on its head in November 1986 upon learning the devastating news of the rape and murder of her dear friend Sara in Portland, Oregon. Although traumatized by the violent death of someone so close to her, Louise drew from the tragic event a fierce new energy and unflinching direction for her creative powers.

“I walk blindly into the wall of death. The circle closes. My father dies, ironically, with a scythe in his hands. Three months later Sara, who shares the day of my birth, is raped and killed. KEENING A REQUIEM. November 1986. Thirty, quietly voluptuous, she exuded sweetness. Hundreds attend her memorial service. Seeing her sister she is seeing/hearing a ghost. Fearful and- no-paranoid I wonder if the man seated near me is the murderer. Gender is vulnerable. Death is vascular, undeniable masculine.”

Breakthrough Years: 1987-2000

By 1987 nearing her 40^th birthday, Louise’s works found their way into major Pacific Northwest shows and exhibitions on a regular basis receiving much attention but few sales. These included such venues as the Tacoma Art Museum, Northwest Artist’s Workshop in Portland, University of Oregon, Cheney-Cowles Memorial Museum in Spokane, and the Third Street Gallery in Seattle. She won awards. Critics recognized her as a cutting edge artist. At this point, an invitation appeared from the well-respected Ucross Foundation in Sheridan, Wyoming for a month-long residency marking national recognition of her work.

The Ucross international arts residency program attracts major creative artists from around the world including sculptors, painters, filmmakers, photographers, composers, and writers. Awardees are selected based on their skills and contributions in their respective fields. While pleased at the opportunity, Louise took up her residency with a heavy heart.

“Depression consumes me as the time for my residency at the Ucross Foundation nears (due to Sara’s death). This time has been self-assigned for mourning Sara’s loss in my work. How does an artist, how does one reconcile the outrageous, heinous act? Wyoming. Stepping off a small jet in Sheridan. The sky lifts. A boundless blue is hoisted by red hillocks with nipples. My studio begins to fill with dark and lurid images: visions of death, my denial and anger. Occasional exoduses into the Wyoming skyscape are a relief. A cow dies, falling in a ditch and lays rotting.”

From all accounts, Louise’s days in Wyoming renewed her spirit and energized her work. She painted, she hiked and she made some important new friends including Maureen Seaton, a well-known New York poet who later used one of Louise’s paintings for a book cover. When Louise returned to the Pacific Northwest she commenced a new body of work which captured the feelings and explorations brought forth by her exposure to other artists in Wyoming and in the processing of Sara’s tragic death.

”My favorite themes are relationships, male to female and parent to child, life events, and changing roles of women,” she has said. The themes of her work have changed over the years, from floating bodies to a series of paintings she calls a complaint about the violence and grieving caused by the still-unsolved Green River series rapes and murders in and around Seattle.” Later, her themes touched on what she calls “Arbitration and Annunciation: The Vessel, the Angel and the Creation Myth.” Her paintings have a deep sense of sensuality, spirituality and mystery.

During these productive years, Louise enjoyed one creative burst after another and took upon a series of stylistic and thematic changes. A prominent early series featured her popular “birdboy” and “angel” figures.

“What binds us to a spiritual realm and each other? A unifying charge emitted with physical touch or compassionate connection “through air.” Angels often are a way to literally see into these arenas of being in touch. My innocents are the sweet, often comical, birdboys who challenge hulking archangels or bring the news. As Bastard sons, they try hard to negotiate both physical and spiritual worlds. Yet, my experience often leaves me bereft of angelic images. My work seems Janus-like to face both corporeality, that is, an interest in the physical basis of the spirit and an obsessive fascination with the awe inspiring, Kali-like dimensions of our creations. Why are destruction and life? What kinds of remembering and representation are possible?”

In an article regarding her posthumous retrospective at Evergreen Galleries, Patrick Amarillas discussed Louise’s birdboy phase:

“Often blue or brown in plumage, the bird boys can either be interpreted as costumed boys (as in the Good Mother Explains, 1993 where a wide-eyed bird boy sits in rapture while being read to by his mother) or as full-on human/avian hybrids (such as Birdboy Sepakers, 1990, which features several preening and pecking bird boys). With the bird boy period we can see a sudden jump in tone and content”

Her longtime friend and confidante Al Chickering endeavored to capture his impression of the birdboy period.

“Both the bird boy and angel are kind of in this in-between world between the waking world and dreaming world (or transcendent reality). These themes were and became important in Louise’s later work: like the wings on the person in poverty cooking an egg on a can or the angel giving comfort to those dying of starvation in the Annunciation piece. Al Chickering, email to Tom Lineham, August 22, 2009.”

Louise was always a leader in the community of northwest women artists drawn to her talent, integrity and engaging personality. She brought her fellow artists and friends together to share ideas, plan projects, joke, commiserate and support one another in this highly competitive field. Her leadership and networking skills attracted opportunities to share her insights and experiences. And her studio was often filled with friends or students, learning, listening and using her extensive library of books and images.

Acknowledging her leadership skills the Washington State Artist Trust brought Louise onto its board of director which she served from 1992-94. Artist Trust is a not-for-profit organization whose sole mission is to support and encourage individual artists working in all disciplines in order to enrich community life throughout Washington State. To accomplish its mission, Artist Trust raises funds from an array of sources in order to: Give financial grants, through a peer review process, to individual artists working in the visual, performing, media, literary, and interdisciplinary arts. It also serves as a professional information resource for artists and encourages artists to support each other.

In recognition of her excellence in creative arts, Louise received a month long residency from Centrum, a non-profit organization in Washington State that provides space on the beautiful Fort Worden campus for artists of all types: writers, musicians, painters and sculptors. Louise devoted her month to learning a new skill: printmaking. Part of the residency involved sharing her work with other artists in the program. This opportunity brought new insights and materials into her work. Many of the Egyptian Girl series, for instance, resulted from the hours she spent in the printmaking studio at Centrum.

Social Messaging

During the height of her productive years Louise did not back down from the critical issues facing society. Beneath each issue, her feminism informed to the surface of her canvases. She once told her friend Connie Simpson, “I paint to communicate a truth I cannot tell with words.”

A reviewer of her April 1995 show wrote:

“There is no question that Louise Williams’ is a political engaged art. She is deeply concerned with humans suffering and outraged at injustice and barbarism…She is deeply concerned about women, children, family and community, and she works this caring into her pieces without forgetting that they are visual art and must communicate through the processes of the media. Perhaps because her thematic works seem to evolve gradually from her personal life – the African Series grew from the visit to Egypt, a country both African and Middle-eastern – her paintings, while socially engaged, are not particularly didactic or scolding. They also carry a readable, communicable statement, which is not always the case with art that mixes the intensely personal with moralizing messages.” From Art Access, April 1995.

Louise explained some of her influences:

“Women are creating in every kind of traditional and avant-garde art form. The role of female art in the return to realism and figurative art is well recognized. My work grows from the figurative expression of Alice Neel, Max Beckman and the social awareness of Kathie Kollwitz. I’m the beneficiary of feminism that brought a re-examination of subject matter of mother/child, female eroticism, children and male/female relationships. There is an attempt to address the important issues in our society perhaps only by expressing their horrific, humorous, sometimes lovely and always ubiquitous complexity, but moreover in the process of doing my work I find gratitude for the dance we all seem to share in common.”

Three series in particular underscored her commitment to exploring artistically the social/political issues of her lifetime. Using striking, unconventional imagery and her masterful drawing skills, Louise recorded and penetrated the issues of violence against women, genocide in Africa and the plight of the mentally ill.

Cut Flowers series on the Green River murders

Louise first displayed her work representing her outrage of the Green River murders at Ucross. Despite the macabre subject matter, she showed this series several times later. She even included several of the pieces in her 2003 retrospective. She explained:

“It is no mistake that earth is called mother. In Washington State, highways are lined with rows of evergreens, the façade of clear-cut hills. Although verdant forests remain, the land is systematically ravaged. It is in one of these areas of natural beauty that the Green River Killer deposits his victim’s bodies.”

One review expressed perhaps a common view of an exhibition that included this series:

“The overwhelming theme in all works on display is violence. So much violence, in fact, that it hardly seems this gentle woman could be the artist. Williams is serious, quiet person who carefully phrases her thoughts. . .Male figures, whether adult or child, are nearly always decapitated, or, if they have a head, the face is blurred out of focus…The faces featured in Cut Flowers are not the faces of the dead, however, but those of living women taken from newspapers and magazines. According to the typed explanation attached to the exhibit, “these women are survivors; they carry the burden of awareness.”

While Williams found expressing her feelings in Cut Flowers to be healing and spiritual, she admits that it may have been detrimental to her to have dwelt on the subject as long as she did. “It held me in that space, where I constantly thought about it,” Williams said.””

African series

Her 1991 journey with her daughter to Egypt caused her reflect how easily many Americans coolly ignore human rights violations, genocide and rape occurring in Africa or elsewhere in the world. She returned from this trip with another series of importance in mind.

A reviewer described this work:

“The paintings in the “African Series” are drawn almost entirely from two newspaper photographs of different sets of reunited sisters, orphaned in the conflicts in Somalia and Rwanda. In these works, Williams suggests that it is the images of children, themselves that are the “angels” and there is no longer a need to draw in symbolic or fantastic figures. The subject matter of the pictures carries its own resolution and the paintings can now support a more abstract style.

The images are systematically used and re-used, added to and layered over. The purpose is to make something beautiful out of horrific information. The paintings reflect a spiritual search. They are intended to be hopeful without neglecting the terror of the images’ sources. Several of the paintings have accompanying text that tells the sad stories. But the text is faint and hard to read. The underlying theme is clearly one of hope.”

Louise wrote of the African series in her artist statement for her show, The Peaceable Kingdom:

“These terrorized and beautifully children populate our newspapers alongside pencil thin models and politicians. The photographs published are sometimes of the agony of starvation, but often focus on longing. The media’s carefully selected images beg many questions, most are unanswerable at a glance. So the seeming complexity of the potential and social causes for genocide, civil war and starvation often cause a massive retreat into number tithing and TV. And in shame we turn away. From “Artist’s statement: The Peaceable Kingdom.”

The cherubim of the newspaper are often from starved, war-torn lands. These children, as innocent, fly electronically across the human landscape to be recreated in the pages of the dailies. Who is to say that divine intervention is not responsible for the photographer’s presence when young Rwanda sisters reunite? The editor’s choice of an image, like the artist’s, can be spirit driven. The message is of hope amidst suffering. The beauty is that once in awhile humans touch one another. The questions posed probe what each of us can might do to ameliorate our own and other’s suffering. Is it possible to escape a self-imposed exile to the country of compassionless survival? These works are a prayer for inner peace and world harmony.”

Mental Health series

The mental health problem came loudly knocking at her door when her son was finally diagnosed with the brain disease after experiencing many difficulties in controlling his aggressive behavior. Like many families who have a member suffering mental illness, Louise and her family struggled when her son did not receive adequate mental health care from the local, underfunded system. She learned first-hand how the mentally ill receive the run around and must endure the cycle of emergency room/jail/self-medication/emergency room/jail. In her startling display of this community dilemma at her show during the Olympia Arts Walk Louise captured the predicament of the mentally ill shared by many. Of about a dozen works displayed, all but 2 or 3 sold. Buyers, it seemed, related both to the theme and the fine drawings of the artist.

In her words:

“Innocence and beauty, the commerce of our society and its use of images of children. Behind a barrage of historic and current imagery of children as sweet and cuddly is our hope for ourselves and the future. Most don’t dwell on the future that for some children holds the biological diseases of mental illness. The roulette wheel spins some into unpleasant futures. It is a humanizing experience to remember that the homeless mentally ill and “weird” neighbors who pace and talk to themselves were once beloved, if they were lucky, and innocent children. To see the children deserving of care and love in the dirty, smelly, drunk and hallucinating adult means that we must address the systematic and personal failures that encourage the treatment of the street, the mess of services most counties Washington provide.

This body of work comes from the love I have for my son and others I know stricken with Schizophrenia, bipolar diseases, and other diseases that often cause disordered, disorienting and lonely lives.

The mixed media (charcoal, frosted acetate, paint, paper) work visually represents children’s faces and is layered with text that speaks of the adults—challenged by social, psychological, physical forces of mental illness—they became. Sometimes this text is layered and readable other times more obscure in legibility and symbolism. Just as we all hear voices in our own heads that can sometimes be pushed back or not depending on the biochemical state of the brain, the under-layer of the image sometimes obscures the face of the image. Not shocking images just a reminder to do better by the ill that are isolated, homeless and untreated.”

For the rest of her life she played an active role in the community mental health community.

Befriending an Untimely Death

By the beginning of 2000 Louise was in a highly productive artistic period, teaching at the Evergreen State College and active in community affairs involving mental health issues. But her active world suddenly came to a halt when doctors diagnosed Louise with Stage Four ovarian cancer. Numerous operations, countless doses of chemotherapy, frequent late night visits to emergency rooms and urgent care, and periodic stays in the oncology section of the local hospital followed. Louise knew her chances and educated herself about this terrible disease and available ovarian cancer treatments. Once she felt strong enough between treatments and hospitalizations she returned to her studio and work. She told friends that she wanted to live long enough to see her beloved granddaughter, Maya, graduate from high school. With this inspiration she entered into yet another high productivity period. Sometimes, young Maya worked nearby in Louise’s studio at her own, smaller easel. Seemingly the two drew inspiration and comfort from one another.

“One constant source of imagery throughout my career has been the mother-child relationship. At times most of my work has drawn on this imagery. Years ago, after viewing my slides an interviewer asked, “How many children do you have?” My paintings and drawings of family relationships, particularly the mother-child relationship were informed by historical Christian images of the holy family. In a more “modern” interpretation, I sought the spiritual in divergent family forms. Thus, the iconography was of airplanes not angels (although angels in retribution continue to fly into my imagery) electric current instead of a halo, TV’s stuffed toys, pajamas with feet, blue herons in the background.”

Louise’s work grew lighter in content and color in her later years. Possibly, as a consequence, the Washington State Arts Commission purchased numerous pieces of her work for the Arts in it Public Places Program. In all, the program acquired over 20 of her paintings. These can now be seen in schools across Washington state from Medical Lake to Bridgeport, from Richland to Renton.

During this time, Louise also engaged in two major collaborative projects with northwest artists Susan Christian and Becky Frehse. In 2002 she worked with Susan Christian to produce the splendidly kinetic Circle of Light installation that currently adorns the walls and spaces at the Olympia Community Youth Services. At the opening presentation Louise remarked that she was quite proud and satisfied with this particular work installed in a space designed to welcome youngsters who were the focus of the agency.

Also in 2002, Louise teamed up with Becky Frehse, a friend since 1982 when they met in Ellensburg as graduate students. The two collaborative on a delightful series of illustrated folding books as well as an ongoing series of portraits of children called “Collected Stories.”

An exhibition flyer tells the story which reflects Louise’s approach to making art:

“One fine day in March 2002, Becky and Louise drove to Portland together to rendezvous with some of their other grad school friends. During that long drive, Louise expressed her wish to do a collaborative project with Becky as she was beginning to feel that her time and energy were indeed going to be limited by her illness. She suggested doing a book that could be sent back and forth to each other for additions and refinements without any preconceived themes or notions about what had to be included. Both artists trusted one another’s skills and sensibilities and one book led to another very quickly. Sometimes the artists met each other halfway between Olympia and Tacoma at the Starbuck’s near the DuPont freeway exit. Louise took a folding book with her when she had to be at the hospital for long, chemotherapy treatments; they kept her mind occupied and her hand working. Becky made sure that the new installments were delivered to Louise when she had to be in the hospital so that she would be amused and encouraged to keep going.”

The artists displayed the popular folding books at several shows. In 2003 Louise participated in two major shows including a retrospective at the Washington Center of the Performing Arts in Olympia. Her final show was at Childhood’s End in 2003 entitled New Paintings by Louise William.

“These new paintings have evolved from pastel and acrylic paintings of children in recent exhibits. The evolution was been a more complex imagery that includes animals, adults and more natural forms. I am excited about the return to the oil painting medium after a long hiatus, and the further development of mixed media gouache paintings on black paper. Both media are layered with translucent glazes of color to create mysterious and symbolic light within the paintings.”

Louise’s Influence & Legacy

Possibly the best summary of Louise’s life work appeared in her artist statement for her retrospective at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, Olympia, in 2003:

“Beauty’s many faces have fascinated me, but the fragile truth I’ve found in representing the human form and numinous spirit within have been the centerpiece of my work as an artist. There I’ve found a gentle hope and connection to the sacred. The making of images is an act of love and protection. If there is magic in creation it is in the details. In the slow work of seeing and thinking, making mark after mark, and yet, even in erasing is a process that composes and allows perception of a bigger picture. Evolution is like an extremely slow artist with a huge piece of paper, who tries new shapes and colors, then builds on the ones that no longer work compositionally. The evolution of my images includes winks of numinous presence, lusty eyefuls, keening with sorrow.”

Jeffrey Hughes, her teaching colleague at Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri, succinctly captured her passion: “I think she is one of the most exciting artists we have in a very new impressionistic vein. Her work is intensely personal and universal.” Interview of Jeffrey Hughes professor of art and religion for “Cut Flowers: A Rendering Of Women As Survivors.” October 5, 1989:

“Louise inspired all who came into contact with her. She inspired other artists by the dogged focus on her work that led to so many important pieces, by her intrepid desire to exhibit, by her strong voice on women’s issues during a time of passivity and resistance to a feminist voice, and by her use of the Pacific Northwest and the west to advance themes and technique.

She taught and influenced perhaps thousands of students who attended her classes at Pacific Lutheran University, the Evergreen State College, Webster University, Central Washington University, and from her own studios where she offered numerous private classes.”

Her friend and fellow artist, Connie Simpson wrote:

“Louise was a friend, teacher and inspiration to me for more than twenty years. Both single mothers, with all the attendant stress and turmoil, we gravitated together with shared interests and world views. Her focused determination that her work continue in and around the important convolutions of family taught me to do the same. As a teacher, she was never easy, always supportive, disarmingly honest, and unfailingly deep. As a friend, Louise was interested in and knowledgeable about so much. She brought her head and heart to our lunches, tea parties and painting excursions. On many levels, her strength informed her work, and her life. She taught me neither life, nor art, is always pretty and that nothing we hide away changes. As I paint today, I carry this with me.”

Louise’s passing in 2004 left a large hole in the region’s art world but partially through her inspiration other remarkable women artists have emerged to carry on the tradition of asking deeper questions through their art to express them.