Anne Danahy
Artist's Statement
As a child, I loved to draw, paint and write stories, and dreamed of living on a ranch near the mountains. When I left the cement world of Los Angeles and the cultural intensity of San Francisco to farm a ranch for two years in southwest Montana I fell in love with Montana’s sunsets. Her herds of deer and antelope, of elk and big horn sheep, her mountains and vast expanses of open country are so big, so magnificent, so powerful. I exchanged the open country for a Bozeman house on wetlands with ducks, muskrats, a rumored panther, a bear, and a wide variety of birds including hummingbirds and painted buntings.
In college, I studied Art and, after a year in France, graduated from UC San Diego with a B.A. in French and English Literature. In Bozeman, I returned to painting, found good teachers, good galleries, won awards and watched my paintings begin to sell.
Children are artists who paint their future portraits on the fabric of their souls as they live their lives. I have been observing and guiding these life artists since I became a certified Montessori teacher two decades a go. Though each wields his or her own brush, I enjoy helping children learn to live with creativity, joy and ever increasing skill. In life and on canvas, children are some of my favorite subjects, for I share their sense of wonder and love for people, animals and nature.
Painting is a meditation for me, a quiet way to deal directly in images. Though I enjoyed the subtle luminescence of water colors and the brilliant shimmer of dye on silk, I now love working in oils to achieve new creative heights.
From the joy of a child dancing on the grass to the focused youth in a pow-wow dance, from dawn on Mt. Moran’s craggy peaks to the glimmer of a bluebird’s wing, I seek to capture the spark of life in a picture that will uplift your spirit and your home.
As a child, I loved to draw, paint and write stories, and dreamed of living on a ranch near the mountains. When I left the cement world of Los Angeles and the cultural intensity of San Francisco to farm a ranch for two years in southwest Montana I fell in love with Montana’s sunsets. Her herds of deer and antelope, of elk and big horn sheep, her mountains and vast expanses of open country are so big, so magnificent, so powerful. I exchanged the open country for a Bozeman house on wetlands with ducks, muskrats, a rumored panther, a bear, and a wide variety of birds including hummingbirds and painted buntings.
In college, I studied Art and, after a year in France, graduated from UC San Diego with a B.A. in French and English Literature. In Bozeman, I returned to painting, found good teachers, good galleries, won awards and watched my paintings begin to sell.
Children are artists who paint their future portraits on the fabric of their souls as they live their lives. I have been observing and guiding these life artists since I became a certified Montessori teacher two decades a go. Though each wields his or her own brush, I enjoy helping children learn to live with creativity, joy and ever increasing skill. In life and on canvas, children are some of my favorite subjects, for I share their sense of wonder and love for people, animals and nature.
Painting is a meditation for me, a quiet way to deal directly in images. Though I enjoyed the subtle luminescence of water colors and the brilliant shimmer of dye on silk, I now love working in oils to achieve new creative heights.
From the joy of a child dancing on the grass to the focused youth in a pow-wow dance, from dawn on Mt. Moran’s craggy peaks to the glimmer of a bluebird’s wing, I seek to capture the spark of life in a picture that will uplift your spirit and your home.
