Sue Sommers, Pinedale
Sommers Studio
Mediums: painting, printmaking, book art
My landscape paintings fit within a modernist tradition, in that I'm responding in a personal way to the place, the day, and my materials. I live in western Wyoming, a region that sparked the imaginations of Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, and other prominent landscape painters of the 19th century who came from the eastern US. Their experiences of the West revolutionized American painting. Some would call their images melodramatic, but I know from living here that the "melodrama" is real.
More than almost any domesticated animal, purebred beef bulls symbolize food and sex. They are formidable exemplars of animal maleness: massive, confident, and with musculature sculpted by breeding and testosterone. Herefords and Angus are common where I live and I enjoy observing them. Locally they are bred for docility as well as performance, but their sheer power makes them capable of great havoc, especially when competing for females.
