Linda Sorensen has a lovely group of paintings on exhibit as she prepares for this fall's Art Trails and Atelier One Open House.

Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery's Meador exhibition features Disney and Meador Family Collections as well as a selection of our best Joshua Meador paintings.

Friday August 31 the building, Atelier One at 2860 Bowen Street in Graton, is usually not locked up to 5:00 p.m. We're in Studio 5 at the southern end of the ground floor, from noon to 5:00 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday, September 1 and 2 at Atelier One. We're open noon to 5:00 p.m., but the building should be locked. An easel with info will be standing at the southern door of Atelier One telling you how to get our attention to come to the door to welcome you in.

Joseph Henry Sharp, 1859 - 1953 Joseph Henry Sharp is considered the father of the Taos Art Colony. Although deaf since a childhood accident, he was known for his cheerful nature, and he loved travel. Sharp was among the first to visit Alaska, and he first arrived in Sante Fe in 1883.

The Taos Society of Artists was an idea planted in Paris at the Acedemie Julian where Sharp met two younger Americans who possessed a fascination with the American West.

Sharp shared his experiences of a visit to Taos with Ernest Blumenshein and Bert Geer Phillips.

One of Sharp's artistic interests was painting figures by firelight. He wrote, "I am interested in firelight things now, and have a little teepee interior rigged up in the studio, where I can pose a model by lamp light and work by daylight. Awfully hard, but lots of fun and interesting."

Joseph was quite aware of the Plains and Pueblo cultures, often writing about the issues which Indians faced such as governmental bureaucracy and the harsh realities of Indian reservation life, disease and alcoholism. He knew of the vast diversity among Indian cultures and the common issues they shared. Although not historically accurate, he would use his Taos Indian friend models to depict other Indian cultures, as he did in Jerry Mirabal, Taos in Sioux War Shirt.

President Theodore Roosevelt took an interest in Sharp, because of Sharp's interest in Indians. Roosevelt commissioned Sharp to paint 200 native American survivors of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Sharp was permitted to build a log cabin on government land near the confluence of the two rivers where the battle took place.

Sharp called the cabin Absarokee Hut. The one-room cabin had a high enough ceiling for a balcony at one end. He decorated the hut with Indian artifacts. Phoebe Hearst, the mother of William Randolph Hearst, bought 80 of Sharp's Indian portraits. Hearst gave Sharp a commission to paint 75 more portraits, documenting members of every Great Plains tribe. Hearst's extensive collection of 155 of Sharp's paintings were donated to the University of California at Berkeley.

Bert Geer Phillips 1888-1956 Bert Geer Phillips first learned of Taos, New Mexico, while a student at the Academie Julien in Paris. His classmates Joseph Sharp and Ernest Blumenshein shared their enthusiasm for the American Indian. Sharp had even been to New Mexico in 1893 and planted seeds of curiosity in both Blumenshein and Phillips.

Phillip's paintings of the Indians are infused with his close relationships with them and exhibit his deep love of them and his respect for their culture and history.

After studies in Paris, he returned to America with his classmate Ernest Blumenshein. They shared a studio in New York. In the Spring of 1898, they journeyed to the American West. In Denver they bought supplies, a wagon and a team of horses, and set out for New Mexico. In the wilds, they had a mishap -- a wagon wheel broke.

Blumenshein set out on horseback to the nearby town of Taos seeking assistance. With their wagon wheel fixed, they rolled into Taos, sold their wagon and supplies, and set up a studio. When Phillips decided to return to New York, Blumenshein remained in Taos. Back in New York, Phillips corresponded with Blumenshein about establishing an art colony in Taos. Together with Blumenshein and Joseph Henry Sharp, they eventually did so. The Taos Society of Artists was founded in New Mexico in 1915.

Ernest Blumenshein 1874-1960 Ernest Blumenshein's father was the director of the Dayton, Ohio Philharmonic. As a youngster, Blumenshein was given a scholarship to study violin at the Cincinnati College of Music. While in Cincinnati, he took a course in illustration at the Cincinnati Art Academy, leading him to change his focus from music to art. He moved to New York and attended the Art Student's League and then moved on to the Academie Julian in 1894. There, he became friends with fellow American student Bert Phillips and the older, more experienced Joseph Henry Sharp. The three shared their curiosity about the American Indian. Sharp planted the seeds of curiosity in both Blumenshein and Phillips about an enchanted place he had visited, New Mexico, where American Indian culture was still alive and waiting to be captured in a truly American art.

Oscar Berninghaus 1874-1952 Oscar Berninghaus first visited Taos on assignment for McClure's Magazine. He met Bert Phillips who invited him to return.

Berninghaus spent his summers in Taos, while keeping his job in St. Louis working for clients, which included creating illustrations for Anheuser-Busch Brewing and the Denver and Rio Grand Railroad.

In 1915, Berninghaus became a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. He was dedicated to the Society. He said, We have had French, Dutch, Italian and German art. Now we have American art. I feel that from Taos will come that art."

E. Irving Couse 1886-1936 E. (Eanger) Irving Couse was a remarkable American painter. He studied at the Academie Julian in Paris in 1887 where he was influenced by the classical portrait techniques of William Adolphe Bougereau. He was determined to use what he had learned in France and apply it to create a American Art.

In 1912, he visited Taos. As Bougereau had painted French peasants, Couse painted the American Indian. Although he did do some plein air painting, he preferred the French academic methods he had learned in Paris and worked mostly with models in his studio. His paintings were reflections of a poetic and peaceful civilization. His models were engaged in everyday activities, and they were portrayed as handsome physical figures, often accented by the long shadows of early or late sunlight, by moonlight or firelight.

Walter Ufer 1876 - 1936 Walter Ufer received support from his family to pursue his love of art. After an apprenticeship with a lithographer in Louisville, KY, he studied in Dresden, Germany, at the Royal Applied Arts School, and the Royal Academy in Munich. After seven years in Europe, he met Joseph Henry Sharp and Ernest Blumenshein.

His association with Sharp and Blumenshein led Ufer to Chicago. There, with the financial backing of two art promoters - former Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison and Oscar Mayer, Chicago's sausage king - Ufer visited Taos in 1914. He was immediately taken with the indigenous Pueblo culture.

His artistic skills were immediately recognized by members of the Taos Society of Artists. He achieved commercial success in spite of his constant struggle with alcoholism. All was going pretty well until the stock market crash of 1929 caused the art market to crash as well. He increasingly distanced himself from painting in the years following the crash. As the value of his paintings fell, Walter drank more and more. He was 60 when he died of a ruptured appendix in 1936.

Ufer became a friend of Indians and felt the pain they experienced due to racism. Altermann Galleries of Sante Fe and Scottsdale states, "Ufer saw the New Mexico Indian as an example of a people who had been vanquished by civilization. 'The Indian has lost his race pride,' Ufer commented at one point. 'He wants only to be American. Our civilization has terrific power. We don't feel it, but that man out there in the mountains feels it, and he cannot cope with such pressure.' "

Ufer was known for his personal generosity. During the 1918 flu epidemic, he helped treat victims at a local Taos schoolhouse. He collected money for striking miners in Madrid, New Mexico.

His concern for the struggles of people suffering injustice was reflected in his politics and social activism. He was a member of the International Workers of the World and was a follower, and according to some sources, a personal friend of, Leon Trotsky.

Victor Higgins 1884-1949 - Victor Higgins was not one of the original six Taos Society members, but was included early on. Although the Taos Society painters focused on figure painting, Higgins focused on landscape. He also was more influenced by modernist abstract art than the original founding members. AskArt's biography states his style as, "combining impressionism with cubism, reducing basic shapes to give rhythm to his compositions, showing geometric relationships of form and design."

He was born in rural central Indiana. Defiantly rejecting his parent's wishes, 15 year old Victor, left his Indiana home and attended the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied briefly with E. Martin Hennings and Walter Ufer.

Leaving Chicago, he ventured to Europe to the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris where he studied under Robert Henri, and later in Munich with Hans von Hayek.

After attending the Armory Show of 1913 in New York, he was influenced by the work of Marsden Hartley. He moved to Taos in 1915, joining the Taos Society of Artists in 1917. In 1923, he helped found the Harwood Foundation along with Bert Phillips and Louis Harwood.

Higgins proved to be an infusion of new artistic blood for the Taos Society. He became a link between his more conservative colleagues and the emerging artistic developments of the twentieth century.

E. Martin Hennings 1886-1956 E. Martin Hennings was a late addition to the Taos Society of Artists. He was voted in unanimously by the members a year after Oscar Berninghaus and Walter Ufer nominated him in 1923.

After taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago, he worked commercially creating murals, mostly on canvas, for Chicago's large hotels. He then re-enrolled in the Art Institute and in 1912, entered a painting in a competition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He won second prize.

Bolstered with his success in Paris, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. There he met Victor Higgins and Walter Ufer. Back in Chicago, Henning's talent was recognized by art patrons including Carter Harrison. These are the same people who encouraged Walter Ufer and Victor Higgins to visit Taos three years earlier. After a few visits, Hennings moved to Taos. Although he also painted landscapes, his primary focus was portrait painting.

Marsden Hartley 1877-1943 Marsden Hartley visited New Mexico in 1918 at the age of 41. He was a gifted painter. As a 22 year old, had studied under William Merritt Chase at the National Academy of Design in New York City. He loved the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. His work was recognized by Alfred Stieglitz, who gave him an exhibition at his Studio 291 in 1909. Stieglitz introduced Hartley to European painters including Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse. In 1912, Hartley traveled to Paris where he was introduced to Gertrude Stein's circle of avante-garde artists. In Berlin, he painted with Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc.

When he returned to America, he wanted to find America. In New Mexico, he said, "I am an American discovering America."

In 1947, Georgia's husband, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, died. After two years spent settling her husband's estate, Georgia returned to Abiquiu, New Mexico in 1949, making it her full-time home. Although she traveled widely, she considered New Mexico her home until her death in 1997 at age of 99.

Eleven years after her death, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum opened in Sante Fe. The museum exhibits the largest permanent collection of O'Keeffe's work in the world, including examples from her large-format flower, skull and landscape paintings to paintings of architectural forms and rocks, shells and trees. The museum is also the steward of the historic Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio in Albiquiu, about 53 miles north of Sante Fe, and also owns and maintains O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch property, 20 minutes north of Abiquiu, which is not open to the public.

When Georgia was in her seventies, she flew around the world. A momentary view of clouds from an airplane window inspired her to create the largest painting of her career. Looking back on the experience, she remembered, "The Sky below was completely full of little oval white clouds, all more or less alike." The first cloud painting was small; the next two were larger. The final painting is 8 x 24 feet and is at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Between 1918 and 1934, Georgia O'Keeffe spent a part of each year at Alfred Stieglitz's family estate in Lake George, New York. Painted in 1923, Storm Cloud, Lake George has sometimes been assumed to be a nighttime imagining of her time spent there. This painting is currently on display in the middle of removing old layers of varnish. The left side of the canvas shows the painting as Georgia intended it to look. Four layers of varnish have been removed using formulated solvent gels that prevent damage to the original fragile paints below. The right side of the painting will be conserved this winter.

"I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me -- shapes and ideas so near to me -- so natural to my way of being and thinking ... I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught." Georgia O'Keeffe, 1974.

In 1915-1916, while teaching art at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina, Georgia O'Keeffe made a radical decision. She put aside her training and tradition and created a series of bold designs, some of the world's first pure "abstractions." Infused with energy and emotion, these images did not imitate the visual appearance of the world, but instead used line, shape, color and contrast to convey meaning. Deeply appreciative of the beauty and spiritual power of the natural world, she often turned to the surrounding landscapes, flowers, and trees for her subject matter. Her abstractions were first exhibited in New York in 1916 at Alfred Stieglitz's avant-garde gallery "291." By the mid 1920's, O'Keeffe was recognized as one of America's most important and successful artists.

In the summer of 1929, Georgia O'Keeffe made the first of many trips to New Mexico. As she explored the unfamiliar environment, she experimented with fresh colors, forms and compositional strategies. Her exploration coincided with an expanding regionalist perspective among many American Modernists, who were seeking a larger view of the American scene beyond New York City.

In the summer of 1944, Maria Chabot took this picture of O'Keeffe riding behind her friend Maurice Grosser (1903-1986) who was an artist and writer. He was part of the avant-garde circle of New York friends who also traveled to New Mexico to paint. During the summer of 1944-45, he was O'Keeffe's guest at the Ghost Ranch. His 1937 Harley Davidson motorcycle was commonly referred to as a "Knucklehead."

During the 1930's and 40's she continued to spend part of most years living and working in the high desert landscape that inspired a new chapter in her professional life. Over time, her New Mexico paintings became as well known as the work she had completed earlier in New York. In 1949, nearly three years after the death of her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, she made New Mexico her permanent home. Her dramatic desert landscapes have become enduring icons of American Modernism; less well known is her persistent interest in the changing colors of cottonwood trees along the Chama River Valley visible from her studio in Abiquiu.

Georgia first saw the landscape she called "The Black Place" in 1935, 150 miles west of her Ghost Ranch home. Between 1935 and 1949, she returned to this place many times, creating more than a dozen major paintings.

Linda Sorensen's paintings are also currently showing at

Bodega Landmark Gallery Collection,
located inland in the town of Bodega, west end of town a half block from the Casino, and just across from the (vacant) General Store and the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department.

Corrick's "Art Trails Gallery,"
located in downtown Santa Rosa on 4th Street, just steps from Santa Rosa's reopened Town Square.

6th Street Playhouse, The Studio Gallery,
52 W. 6th Street, Santa Rosa.

There will be 17 or more open studios at the HANDS ON ART celebration of Atelier One's art community in Graton, CA. 2860 Bowen Street, Septembr 29 and 30, 11-6. Linda will be at Studio #5 on the ground floor, far south end, where Monty Monty, Susan Proehl, and Susan Stover will also be welcoming visitors.

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

... IN GRATON, CA ...
Linda Sorensen's studio and Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery's showroom is now is located in Atelier One, Graton. You may view all paintings in Linda Sorensen's or Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery's online offerings. Call or email for an appointment.

... IN YOUR HOME ... Call or email for a an appointment. For a fee, we'll bring the art to you (up to 200 miles from Bodega Bay). Sales above $5,000, the travel fee is refunded.

... ON LINE ... Call or email about pieces which interest you. We offer FedEx shipping (included in price) in the U.S for major purchases.