Marlene Meyer
Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin
 

Marlene Meyer’s main interest is painting from life, whether outdoors or from a still life, primarily using oil paint, although she has used soft pastel and acrylic.  She paints simply because she loves it and she’s always pleased when viewers connect with her work. “Painting is always a challenge and an adventure, especially the time spent painting outside,” she states.

She is passionate about painting. Her goal is to communicate and to evoke in each viewer a sense of the place, and of her own artist’s reactions and emotions.

 “I’ve always had a vision of how I wanted to paint,’ Marlene says, and through classes and critiques with professional painters she has gradually developed her painterly approach, which shows either the brush or palette knife strokes.

“Art is long, life is short, paint every day,” is a motto describing the journey of a painter; a goal not always realized, but she does try to draw, paint or work with art whenever she can.

Born and raised in Colorado, Marlene has always been interested in art and always wanted to paint. She grew up surrounded by paintings and art books of all types, and was mainly inspired by her mother who was an amateur painter.

She received an Associate of Arts degree from Pueblo Junior College in 1953, after which she worked as a civilian secretary for the U.S. Army. There she met Bill Meyer, who was stationed at Fort Carson. They married, spent 10 months in Germany while Bill was stationed there, then moved to Waldo, Wisconsin, to live and work on his family’s orchard.

In 1964 Bill and Marlene bought Kickapoo Orchard, Inc. near Gays Mills, where they lived, worked and raised their two sons, Andy, who now manages Kickapoo Orchard, and Michael, who is an applications engineer with AMD in Austin, Texas. 

Through the years, Marlene’s desire to paint stayed strong, and she was urged to study formally.  She took classes at Richland Center and then at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, graduating there in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science with a Fine Art Major.

Along with art classes she studied botany and biology and says that those courses are still helpful in assisting her in learning to see and paint nature. 

In part-time retirement from the orchard, she now maintains the web site and handles the advertising. But she now also has the opportunity to do what she always wanted to do – grow and develop as a painter.

 In good weather, Marlene often paints outdoors with a group of fellow artists who began meeting about three years ago.  The group, which named itself “Local Color,” gathers at pre-selected sites, paints in sessions that can last from 2 to 4 hours, and shares critiques and suggestions. “You learn and grow as you look at other people’s paintings, and also receive their observations about your work,” she explained.

Marlene has a small painting area in the home that she and Bill built in 2003.  The house is drenched in light and adorned with many of her paintings. Some of her favorites, which can be viewed on her website, include “Still Life, Inspiration,” favored not only because of the visual elements, but also because of the inclusion of art books and the background painting. “Plume Poppies” is another favorite, painted on site early on a summer morning.  “The Yellow Door” is a small painting done at a local painting workshop taught by a professional painter.

She has exhibited in many art fairs, including Art Fair on the Square in Madison, the La Crosse Fine Art Fair, and the Driftless Area Art Fair, held in Crawford County.

Besides the Viroqua Independent Visual Artists, or VIVA, a co-operative Gallery in Viroqua, Marlene is an active member of the Driftless Area Art Festival Committee, serving as secretary of the group. She also has paintings in the Carriage House Art and Gift Shop in Boscobel.

www.marlenemeyerpainter.com

Interview by Sharon Murphy
Photos by Jerry Quebe, Paula Knutesen and Marlene Meyer