[By By Kathryn R. Burke | Montrose Mirror | August 12, 2024]

It would be interesting to look inside this woman’s brain. You might see something like soft swirls and crisp geometric shapes, colors and textures, imagination tangles and lines, pieces of dreams mixed with mindful observations.

Gay Leachman sees with an artistic eye and a creative mind. What she thinks and sees she expresses with paper and paint, ink and pen, color and the absence of it. She goes from thought to process. Quickly. Then takes a step back, returning later to contemplate and complete. With amazing results.

Where did this unique worldview come from?  “I think it started in kindergarten,” Gay says. “With my kindergarten art, which my mother saved for me. It’s  done with sponges and fingers…very geometric. I still have it, had some of it printed out and made into cards.” Most little kids draw mommy, daddy, kitties, puppies, and ponies. Gay drew abstract circles and squares.

“I guess I’ve always been creative,” Gay says. “I like to take something, an idea, and make something out of it, and I like to push the limits.”  This imaginative curve has continued throughout her life, from kid to grownup, to parent (all four of her kids are creatives), and now to nearing retirement from her day job— massage therapist for over 25 years in Ridgway— which she loves and also finds very creative.

Now Gay is concentrating more on her art, that outlet of expression, letting the free-flowing ideas in her brain get some traction. I’m still jut growing, she says, learning, experimenting. It’s a journey. I’m the guide and the paint” (or whatever tools and mediums she is using) “is  the traveler. Then the paint becomes the guide, then I’m traveling with it.  I NEED to do art. It’s very relaxing, an outlet for me. If it makes other people happy, when they see my art and want it in their home. that’s wonderful.”

Gay’s most recent artistic endeavors were supported by a 12-week online course she took with Nicholas Wllton, Art 2 Life. “It was pretty intense,” she says. “I had to be really committed. The first three weeks were spent learning and finding out what you like about life, what you are attracted to, what you want to do. We spent that time making visual and intellectual vision boards. We continued, learning about color and technique, value and design, and painting every day, mostly abstract with acrylic.”

Then the call came to participate in her current show at the 610 Arts Collective in Ridgway, “Color and Circles” where she shares wall space with Jenny McIntyre (related article, last week’s Mirror). “One problem I’ve always had with my art is that when an idea comes, I just get it out there. It’s intuitive. Then I put it away for a while, and when I come back to it, that initial spontaneity is not quite there. The thought of having to think of something to make instead of just being spontaneous worried me.”

But she rallied. That intense art course obviously helped. Gay more than pulled it together for the show at the 610, where you can see tangible evidence of how she’s grown as an artist from kindergarten art to grown-up life expressions. Stand back, look at her art, then get up close and really look. She uses interesting papers with her paint, creating clever mixed media effects, kind of like those complicated creative expressions in that imaginative, artistic brain that seems to know no limits.

Colors and Circles with Gay Leachman and Jenny McIntyre at the 610 in Ridgway and runs through August. I’ve seen it once, but the art of these two women is so mesmerizing, I plan to go back again and again…and eventually have some of it hanging on my own art wall at home. Hopefully I’ll see you at the gallery to share my appreciation of their work. The 610 Collective,  610 Clinton St. https://www.610arts.com/upcoming-exhibitions