The Plein Air Art Festival will return to Snowmass Village next week, immersing more than 20 artists in the outdoors as they they sketch and paint their surroundings.
Linda Loeschen, a painter based in Emma, is one of this year’s participants. She’s typically a studio-based artist, documenting images of western life, like horses and young ranch hands, so the landscape-focused plein air experience is relatively new to her.
She said she’s been practicing in the lead-up to the festival, appreciating the “fresh and loose” feeling of outdoor painting, and she’s looking forward to learning from other artists next week. The festival begins several days of work in the field, followed by a public art fair in Snowmass Base Village Aug. 9-10.
Loeschen spoke to Aspen Public Radio’s Kaya Williams in a live interview on Tuesday. Their conversation has been lightly edited for the web version.
Kaya Williams: I'd love to start with your inspiration here in the Roaring Fork Valley. You've been painting for many, many years. A lot of folks will recognize your work from some local shows. What is it that draws you to our natural landscapes?
Linda Loeschen: Way back in the ’70s, my husband and I had a discussion about what we would do if we were independently wealthy. Well, he was a lawyer. He said he would go to med school, which really surprised me. And I said I would go to Aspen, Colorado. Unfortunately, the fantasy came true because he was killed skiing back East. So here I am.
Williams: And you paint a great many different things here in the Roaring Fork Valley — horses, ranches, the mountains around us. When you're out looking for something to paint, what are you looking for? What speaks to you?
Loeschen: Well, it's not subject matter. It's not mountains or water, or all the beauty that's here. It's how the light hits it. So I think what attracts me is contrast, whether it be in color or value, light or dark, texture, size, there's all kinds of contrast. Like, if you have a huge mountain you're looking at and there's a little dot on it, that's what's going to attract me.
Williams: Now, it's my understanding that the concept of plein air painting, which is sitting out in a field and painting these landscapes, is relatively new to you, correct?
Loeschen: Totally.
Williams: So you'll be participating in the upcoming Snowmass Plein Air Festival, which is happening next week. How have you been preparing for this experience?
Loeschen: I'm totally intimidated. The artists that are going to be there are really fine plein air painters. I don't know most of them. I did look some of them up, and I'm going, ‘oh my God.’ So I went to Nevada on a workshop (for) plein air. Unfortunately, the weather was terrible, but I did learn how to at least get started.
I mean, I've painted landscapes before, but I didn't know how to get started. And I'm a watercolor artist, and it's totally different than with my acrylics and having to paint fast. So I learned just by working with this group of people, which I loved, and I went out with my painter friends, locally.
And I sort of gave up a lot of my friends, because all I did was paint, and they probably thought I was ignoring them. And, ‘I love you. I'll be back.’
Williams: You said that you have to paint fast when you're in these settings. Why is that?
Loeschen: You just don't have the time. What you're supposed to do — and I have to say, I don't do it — I think a real plein air painter is to finish your painting outside on that day. I have been bringing that work in, when actually it was nice and fresh and loose, and I tried to improve it, and pretty much ruined it by trying to finish in the studio, because I was a studio painter.
Now, I'll say, I'm a studio painter, still, but I'm really working on that plein air.
Williams: And as you look ahead to next week, what are you looking forward to?
Loeschen: To see how well I do, that I come through with successful work. To see the other artists, what they do, that's going to be really fun — meeting them and just getting to work with other artists.
