Photos courtesy of Ellen Simper and Cate Erbaugh Holbrook portrait artist Ellen Simper and Petrified Forest National Park March 2016 artist-in-residence Cate Erbaugh will display and demonstrate some of their works from 5 to 8 p.m. on Friday, March 11, at the historic Holbrook Train Depot.
By Nolan Madden Two artists are on tap for an evening of creative inspiration at this month’s Holbrook Depot Art Show. Holbrook’s own Ellen Simper, a transplant to Arizona, is a native of New Mexico. She and her husband Dan have been married almost 50 years, and are parents to six children and 22 grandchildren. She says she was born on a pecan farm–a nut farm, which she euphemistically says is the reason for her quirks that fuel her pursuits in life. “My whole family is inflicted with artistic craziness, we’re all wackos,” she jokes. “I wasn’t interested in oil painting. But around the time that I had my first three children, a friend said to me, ‘Let’s go down and take an adult art education class,’ and I thought to myself ‘I don’t know, I don’t like oil at all.’ “But I went and painted, and I got hooked and I’ve been hooked ever since. It’s a character flaw that keeps me from doing things that are important,” said the artist. Of her preferences for painting, Ellen says she favors oil to acrylic paints, and relates something that many fans of her work may not know about her: “My paint room is a disaster,” she quipped. “But it’s okay because Mel Bradshaw (an active Arizona artist known for his Western paintings) told me once that his paint room is off-limits and that nobody is allowed to disturb its disarray. “He said, ‘I have my stacks, I have my messes, so don’t come in and start organizing things.’ And so I thought to myself, ‘Oh, OK, I’m fine then.’” Petrified Forest National Park’s March 2016 artist-in-residence, Cate Erbaugh, is a diverse creative who says creating her art is a visceral experience. “My point of departure is the integrity of the materials themselves, whether paper, clay or paint. The sheer potentiality of these media gives rise to ideas, and then the task is to cull and refine them,” she explains. A graduate of the University of Illinois College of Art and Design, Cate has worked as a biological illustrator for the Waikiki Aquarium, Galapagos National Park and the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. She says she also found much inspiration during stints as an interpretive ranger at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Valles Caldera National Preserve and Rocky Mountain National Park. Drawing and collage are her longtime passions, and she’s currently crafting custom clay tile for the renovation of a downtown breezeway in Roswell, N.M. She’s excited to be working here among the northern Arizona landscape and to visit Holbrook. “Spending time in wide open spaces seems to spark a parallel spaciousness of mind. I look forward to the particular inspiration Petrified Forest National Park holds in store,” says Cate.
