Serena Supplee, Artist on the Colorado Plateau
Serena Supplee is a long-time resident artist of Moab Utah. Her paintings and sculptures express her life-long passion for the beauty and power of the Colorado Plateau, especially the canyon country carved by its rivers: the Green, the San Juan, and the Colorado.
Serena at the Moab Art Walk, May 2004
Her Journey
Serena was born in Iowa, and began painting while still very young. Like so many of us, she first encountered this magic desert while on a family vacation; she did a five-day trip through the Canyonlands' Maze district when she was 13 years old. The experience had a lasting influence on the course of her life, and as the powerful landscape she had seen began to dominate her artwork, she knew she would live there someday.
Encouraged by her art teachers in Iowa to pursue her attempts to paint the dramatic canyons and high desert she'd visited as a child, Serena earned a BA of Fine Arts at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. While still in college, she began working during summer vacations as a river guide on the Colorado, Green, and San Juan Rivers – the main waterways carving the ancient sandstone to form the canyon country.
She says: "I love the water. When I became a river runner it
just totally changed my life. It was like a part of me that
had been asleep all my life came alive."
["The
Eye of the Beholder - Our Visual Artists", by Robert
Mitchell,
Canyon Legacy, p.19, V49:Fall/Winter
2003]
Her Vision
(photo courtesy Serena Supplee)
Serena likes to do her work outdoors, and either works from field drawings or paints directly in plein aire; she gave away her camera over twenty years ago. Primarily a watercolorist, she also works in oil. Serena's paintings reflect the bold, vibrant colors and ever-changing light of the rivers and canyons, high desert, and mountains. They are also scientifically accurate portraits of the spectacular geology and river wave forms, the result of Serena's accumulated years of first-hand experience and observation. She is currently working on a series of 50 paintings of the Inner Gorge of the Grand Canyon. This series represents her interpretation of her life's path, as well as an accurate portrayal of the canyon's rocks and rapids, which have never before been painted.
Although best known for her landscapes, Serena has also created a series of highly symbolic abstract watercolors based on her personal, meditative journey, which she calls her Vision Paintings. She is a versatile artist with a growing number of gallery shows and other projects. She is commissioned once a year to provide a work of art for reproduction on tee shirts at Phantom Ranch in the Grand Canyon. For several years she has designed Navajo rugs for Barry and Steve Simpson of Twin Rocks Trading Post in Bluff, Utah. The paintings are passed on to Navajo weavers, who interpret her designs as they produce the rugs, in a unique artistic collaboration. Serena also creates commissioned murals in Moab.
At Home
Serena lives just around the corner from us, across Mill Creek from Dave's Corner Market, on the way to the Sand Flats Recreation Area and the Slickrock Bike Trail. She lives in a little old frame house on a large lot shaded by big old cottonwood trees, shielded from the busy street by a curving adobe wall and a living wall of corn in the garden. Laundry dries on the line in the bright clean desert sun.
The lot includes her boat's abode (called the Dory Dorm), "Mr. Ed the Shipping Shed", and a pen for Henrietta, the pet chicken. There used to be more chickens in the pen, but a racoon got them all. The only survivor was Henrietta, the henpecked one, who was not with the others during the massacre...
The yard is scattered with sculptures, mobiles, and other artwork by Serena and her friends. The main social gathering place is the outdoor room just outside the kitchen, with comfortable old tables and chairs under a large shading canvas patio umbrella. There are goats in the field next door. The inside of the little house is mostly taken up with the workroom, where prints are matted and framed by the artist and her staff. Beautiful watercolors by the artist are hung on the walls. Her studio, just a few steps from the house, is a log cabin built in 1880, which originally belonged to the town blacksmith. The garden is lined with the petroglyph art works of her long-time friend and cohort, Tom Wesson.
Around the River's Next Bend
Like every other talented artist, Serena continues to push herself in new directions; not only do her paintings reflect her growth in skill and her depth of vision, but she is now beginning to explore sculptural forms in cement, foam, and stucco. One of her pieces, "Jazz Cat" – inspired by her beloved late cat Shopper – was installed at the outdoor Moonstone Gallery (located on East Center St.) in May 2004.
Fine Art Notecards by Serena Supplee
Most visitors to Moab encounter Serena's work in the form of her fine art notecards. Based on her paintings, these colorful cards provide a beautiful splash of color on the counters of shops and cafes throughout Moab. We first encountered Serena's work in a local print shop last winter, in the form of some exhibit postcards that she was having printed for an upcoming show. We didn't know who she was then, but we were struck by the artist's use of color and ability to create such a grand landscape in such small watercolor images. The postcards glowed like jewels.
We were introduced by mutual friends who thought our company, Circuit Riders, might be able to help her with her web site development and online sales.
It is easy to speak with Serena of important things: life, death, love, and our personal journeys down Time's river. It is also easy to speak with her about business matters. She wishes her degree in Fine Art had included a course on business, but she has learned it on her own. Part of her growing success is due to the fact that she takes the business of her art seriously, from her greeting cards to her latest gallery showing.
Serena has been generous with her time in working with Don and me on various projects, teaching us about the business of art and so much more. We are very grateful to her for her friendship, and look forward to working with her as she continues to push the limits of her skill and her vision to portray the canyon country we all love so much. Thank you, Serena
– Mary Ecsedy (Originally published 10/26/2004, Moab Utah)
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