Fresh Art Meets Fresh Powder

December 29th, 2021

If you’ve ever visited Park City in the winter, you know all too well how beautifully pristine the ski runs are and how incredibly unique our Main Street art galleries are. At Gallery MAR, many of our artists capture the excitement and joy of our winter season through their works of art, from R. Nelson Parrish’s resin interpretations of the dynamic energy of the snowy landscape in motion to Bridgette Meinhold’s encaustic scenes of quiet solitude of the mountains blanketed in snow.

With our beloved mountains as their muse, our artists create works of art that truly resonate with anyone familiar with the beautiful runs, spectacular views, and fun-filled memories of Park City in the winter.

We wanted to learn more about the experiences that inform our artists’ wintry work, so we spoke with a few of our snow-loving artists to discuss what makes this winter wonderland such incredible art inspiration.

SHAWNA MOORE

What’s your favorite thing about skiing/winter sports?

Shawna Moore: There is a quiet isolation about skiing that you really can’t beat. Tuning into the patterns of weather: the precipitation, wind, even small variations of terrain are so important. As a person who grew up with mountain people, it is a skill that you hardly realize you have acquired. It is an innate ability to read the conditions, so it is like a sixth sense. I am always reminded of the idea that Inuit and Scot cultures have so many words for snow and ice to describe each variable.

As a lifetime skier, you get a subtle sense of the big and little changes that happen in the places you travel on skis, a situational awareness based on the history of the snowpack and the present moment observations.

Have you ever skied in Park City? If so, what did you enjoy most about Park City in the winter?

Shawna Moore: I started traveling to Utah to ski in my late 20s and early 30s. My parents had worked at Alta in the 1950s and it was amazing when I would show up there: Alta would roll out the red carpet for me. They really value the history of that place and because my family had been involved we would get tickets to ski for free. The mountain manager at Alta even pulled some strings once and got us tickets at (pre Olympic) Powder Mountain when they got ten inches and there was no new snow up Little Cottonwood. Because I was working in the ski industry and my friend’s husband was a ski rep, we went to Park City Resort to ski the Jupiter Bowls with a guy who worked for Voile. I remember that day being super fun.

When I have winter shows at Gallery MAR, I always ski in Utah and have taken my husband and daughter skiing at all the resorts near Park City and of course to my beloved Alta. I’ve even had a few ski days with other Gallery MAR artists!

What feeling do you try to capture in your winter paintings?

Shawna Moore: For my upcoming exhibition at Gallery MAR in 2022, my hope is to have the experience of this ski season inform most of the work. I just spent two months surfing in Costa Rica and this will be the first full winter I have spent skiing and also working in my Montana studio. I have been preoccupied with surfing lately but the two sports are very similar in relationship to nature and conditions. Even the groups of people who gather to surf or ski are really of the same mindset. So the plan is to tune into the patterns and pace of winter: to observe the colors, sensations, and moods of the mountains and weather.

My favorite moments are skinning up a fresh track with the sun peeking into the trees in the morning with ten degree powder that is so light and crisp that it makes the air around me sparkle and snap. Can that be a painting? I sure hope so, but let me ski down first!

“One can never be bored by powder skiing because it is a special gift of the relationship between earth and sky. It only comes in sufficient amounts in particular places, at certain times on this earth; it lasts only a limited amount of time before sun and wind changes it. People devote their whole lives to it for the pleasure of being so purely played by gravity and snow.”

-Dolores LaChapelle

BRIDGETTE MEINHOLD

What’s your favorite thing about skiing/winter sports?

Bridgette Meinhold: I am happiest outside and moving so anytime I can get out and play, I am content. Winter sports are just another aspect to being outdoors and making the most of the weather, the conditions and my time outside. While I love downhill and backcountry skiing, I also love quiet walks through the woods, cross country skiing, and sitting on a sunny deck bundled up and watching the mountains, the light, the clouds and the snow. We don’t have to be extreme by skiing down black diamond runs to enjoy what nature has to offer.

What do you enjoy most about Park City in the winter?

Bridgette Meinhold: I love going from my cozy cabin in the woods to the winter wonderland that is my neighborhood and skiing right from my deck to the tops of the mountains and back. I just love that there is so much to do around Park City and often I feel like I don’t have enough time to enjoy it all.

What feeling do you try to capture in your winter paintings?

Bridgette Meinhold: One of my favorite aspects of winter landscapes is it’s quiet beauty and I want to share the idea that the mountains and trees and the landscape are resting. It can be so peaceful during the winter and it is a good reminder that even trees rest and so should we.

FRED CALLERI

What’s your favorite thing about skiing/winter sports?

Fred Calleri: Easily my favorite part of skiing is being outside in the crisp air, as a muffled silence falls over everything. It really feels like a blanket has been laid over the land. I love the feel of the cold air in my lungs, as well as the smell of wood smoke permeating the air from fireplaces in homes. I always wonder where the birds and other animals are sheltering

What do you love about painting snow and snowy scenes in particular?

Fred Calleri: I find snow to have the most compelling and dramatic colors in its shadows. Depending on the time of day, the snow becomes a reflector of the sky’s color. Sunset, sunrise, and mid-day all present opportunities to tell a story just with the colors in the snow. Also, as a figurative painter who leans toward the vintage time periods, snow scenes really are a wonderful way to capture the clothing and gear of the time, which I am very drawn to.

What feeling do you try to capture in your winter paintings?

Fred Calleri: I want the viewer to feel the fun of being in the snow: the quiet times, the snowball fights, the sledding, skiing, and being in a warm place looking out at the snow through a window. When it snows, everything feels like a playground. When you’re with others, you get the sense that everyone else feels the same way.

JONATHAN JULIEN

What’s your favorite thing about skiing/winter sports?

Jonathan Julien: Skiing is such an insane way to experience the landscape. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it: the wonder, the joy, the speed through white landscapes. This phenomenological component is my favorite. The other favorite thing is eating French fries in a lodge in-between ski runs.

Where do you love to ski/adventure in the winter?

Jonathan Julien: In 2016 I had a season pass to Park City Mountain. For me, living in the Salt Lake valley, I enjoy the anticipation of slowly making my way up to the mountain. It’s beautiful driving into Park City. It’s utopic. The city has its focus on the mountains, and you can feel it in the space. I also have part of my heart in Sun Valley, Idaho up at Baldy Mountain, where I first learned how to ski with my grandfather, Bompa.

Jonathan Julien: What feeling do you try to capture in your winter paintings?

I want the viewer to be taken back by something new and fresh. Through dynamic compositions and colorful palettes, I want them to experience a wonder inherited in the subject and in the physical painting. There’s a lot of unexplored territory, and I feel like I’m just getting started.

T.S. HARRIS

What is your favorite thing about skiing/winter sports?

T. S. Harris: I love being able to enjoy the outdoors even in cold weather. When I ski, I love to explore the mountain and see the far vistas from the chairlift. There’s nothing better than a day on the slopes and then sitting with a warm beverage looking out at the trees. It’s absolutely beautiful.

Have you ever skied in Park City? If so, what did you enjoy most about Park City in the winter?

T. S. Harris: When I was growing up my mom was showing her art at the Kimball Art Center. We took a couple family vacations to Park City, and I loved skiing there. I fell in love with the town and the slopes. I’m looking forward to coming back!

What feeling do you try to capture in your winter paintings?

T. S. Harris: I try to capture the feeling of cool, crisp mountain air, and the exhilaration of skiing, skating, or simply enjoying the scenery.

MARY SCRIMGEOUR

Where do you love to ski/adventure in the winter?

Mary Scrimgeour: I grew up in Colorado and learned to ski there. There is such a wide variety of options there for every winter sport that there is so I would say that Colorado is always my first choice. But perhaps my most unique experience was in St. Moritz in Switzerland. It was beautiful, steep, scary and thrilling. Very memorable.

What do you love about painting snow and snowy scenes in particular?

Mary Scrimgeour: I love to paint the clean, empty, simplicity of winter. I especially love to paint the winter sky. It has a particular mysterious feeling: slightly gray and moody. There’s a lot you can put into it. Then the stark white snow works so well with a darker sky. It has a beauty all of its own with bare trees and all the colors reflected in the snow. It’s all sparkly and clean. I love to paint all of that.

What feeling do you try to capture in your winter paintings?

Mary Scrimgeour: I try to capture the magic of winter! The joy and fun and cozy feeling of being inside in the winter.

JANE MAXWELL

Have you ever skied in Park City? If so, what did you enjoy most about Park City in the winter?

Jane Maxwell: I have skied in Park City many times! In fact, for my parents’ 50th anniversary, they took all of their kids and grandkids to Park City for a week we will always remember. I love the proximity of Park City to the airport and of course the adorable town, art galleries and restaurants!

What do you love about painting snow and snowy scenes in particular?

Jane Maxwell: Depicting women skiing and snowboarding is a new theme for me. And, yet it fits perfectly into my theme of women’s power! I love the aggression and strength of the women I am able to capture on the mountain.

What feeling do you try to capture in your winter paintings?

Jane Maxwell: I love to capture the idea that a woman has athleticism and power to tackle the most advanced ski terrain. Most of the women I create are jumping or racing and look very strong. Women’s power and strength is a theme that runs through all my work.

Find more wintry wonderland work from our ski-loving artists in the gallery today!

Written by Veronica Vale and Gallery MAR Artists