Karen Petrovich is an adventurous member of the Blue Buffalo Artists, who are currently exhibiting their work at the MonDak Heritage Center. Karen recently moved to Arizona after having lived the outdoor life in Cody, Wyoming for many years working as a ranch hand, truck driver, horseshoer, ditch rider, hunting guide and lady bull rider. She spent 11 seasons working for the U.S. Forest Service.
Her landscapes reflect her love of life outdoors and she now enjoys painting "en plein air"(a French expression for "in the open air.") With wind, sun and insects and wildlife, painting outdoors is not for the faint-hearted, as Karen explains. "When we first started the Cody Art show with the Blue Buffalos, some of the artists would arrive early and we would go out plein air painting in the Bear Tooth Mountains. We decided to paint on the old Sunlight Bridge that goes to the campground that has almost no traffic. We stopped on the bridge to paint and there were big Grizzly tracks in the mud. One gal would not get out of the van and just painted on the doorstep. The rest of us faced in different directions while painting, standing in bear tracks on the bridge. After that I thought we should call our group the extreme plein air painters, "The Bear Baits."
Karen studied art at the Scottsdale Artist School and the Sedona Art Center. Her artwork has been featured in the Billings Gazette, Montana Life Styles, Art of the West, Southwest Art, Horses in Art and others. The Blue Buffalo Artists exhibit will be showing at the MonDak through February 13, 2016. There will be a reception on Sat., Jan. 23, 2016 with live entertainment by Bob Petermann, cowboy singer and poet from Wibaux, Montana. The performance begins at 1 p.m.
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