Red River Rats

If you've visited in the last few weeks, you know that I was recently an Artist in Residence with my friend, Denise, in northern Texas. Her professional name is D. LaRue Mahlke and she is not only a great friend, her pastel landscapes are fantastic, award-winning in fact! Check out her website and see for yourself here: www.dlaruemahlke.com 
We explored all around the wide Gateway to Texas, finding the Red River itself and lots of wildlife, including a coyote that was loping around the edges of this spot. But don't worry; we had two intrepid bodyguards watching out for us. They were also our chauffeur/tour guides, sherpas and photographers. Thank you, Jim Clark and Val Varley! They are immortalized in my little painting: Jim's in blue and Val's in red.
Jim and Val are key players in the AIR program in Clarksville. Val is the president of the Red River County Historical Society, which sponsored us. Jim's family founded the town back in the 1800's and owned a lot of the land that people in our history books walked over on their way into Texas! Also very interesting was learning that the last person to live in the Lennox House, where we stayed, was a woman named Martha who, like us, was an artist! She attended art school in the early part of the 1900's at the Corcoran in DC and the Art Student's League in NYC!!! This is a serious artist! Her paintings hung throughout the house and were very strong and bold; quite inspirational. We will continue to create works from our stay there for a while, and plan to go back very soon.