By Terry Sanville ~
For many artists, the road to success is a tough one. For Arroyo Grande artist Laurel Sherrie, the road itself became part of her success.
After painting Central Coast landscapes for seventeen years, in 2014 she was selected to be the official artist for the California Highway 1 Discovery Route – a website and map that promotes tourism along coastal SLO County.
Ten of her vibrant oil paintings are displayed on the Discovery Route’s website at https://winecoastcountry.com/.
Laurel often works on location, or en plein air as the French say. But outdoor painting is not without its adventures. Laurel tells this story:
“A friend and I set up our paints next to a fenced field with a view of the old school house at Hearst State Beach. We were painting away when two horses came to investigate. One of them dunked its head over the top wire smack into my palette. When it lifted its head, it had Cadmium yellow, orange and red smeared all over its muzzle. We coaxed the horse to remain quiet while we wiped off the paint with a rag soaked in mineral spirits. I’m sure it hated the smell, and we left the poor beast with a tinted psychedelic-colored nose.”
Laurel’s own highway into the art world began in Lansing, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. She grew up in an area bordered by farms and woods and early on developed a love for landscape. Laurel taught herself to draw and sketch. She produced her first oil in high school – a portrait of a teenage girl painted in shades of blue. So prophetic.
Laurel left home in 1967 to attend Eastern Illinois University and study art. But she soon got swallowed up by the turbulence of the 1960s – marching in Vietnam War protests, leaving school to travel with a boyfriend, moving to a commune in Berkeley and selling copies of the Berkeley Barb to pay the rent, living on a Tennessee farm with peace-loving hippies for a couple of years, and all the while being lost in the purple haze of psycheldics and pot.
But, Laurel’s twisting highway straightened. “When I stopped doing drugs, I felt like I could paint again,” she said. After visiting a Chicago exhibition of Claude Monet’s paintings and reading his life’s story, she decided to become an oil painter and to paint the things she loves, her own tribute to the peace-and-love spirit of the ’60s.
These days, Laurel participates each year in the countywide Open Studio Art Tour, maintains a beautiful Website www.laurelsherrie.com, and is an Associate Partner in The Gallery in the Network on Higuera Street in Downtown San Luis Obispo. The gallery includes a major display of her vivid paintings for those who enjoy and demand a physical connection with the art.
Laurel also teaches at her home studio in a picturesque valley setting just east of Arroyo Grande. For more information about her work, exhibitions and classes, feel free to contact her at [email protected].
