"Last Straw"

12 x 10

Oil

Growing up in Cherry Hills Village, CO Dancy Gould St. John has been interested in the natural world for as long as she can remember. She spent her childhood with her siblings, dogs and horses, exploring the, then, undeveloped fields, trails and the Highline Canal. Watching the weather roll in from the west over the Rocky Mountains instilled a love for the sky's drama. Plein air painting, along with fly fishing, hiking and skiing, has proved to be the perfect expression for her affinity to the outdoors. She and her family live in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Dancy received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in 1986. Shortly thereafter she studied at the Day Studio in San Francisco and went on to. pursued a career in faux finishing and mural painting. She worked for architects, designers, interior decorators and numerous private clients until the late 90's. All the while she was taking as many plein air workshops and private classes as she could fit in. She took classes from John Encinias, Kim Mackey and Steve Elliot, and she attended the annual seminars by the prestigious Plein Air Painters of America. She has studied under and been influenced most notably by Jean Perry, Stan Sampson, Linda Tippets and Kevin McPherson from that group among many others. She also attended the Art Students League of Denver where she studied under Quang Ho and Doug Dawson. Her background in faux finishing has translated to her smaller paintings, in that she employs the layering of color and glazing in her paintings. While she is still as interested in painting grand vistas as she was when she was mural painting, the challenge is for her smaller work to have a more intimate feel than her large scale murals do.

Her work has been exhibited and sold at a number of private shows in Colorado, at the Artists' Gallery of Steamboat, the Kent Denver School, Pirate Gallery, the Art Depot in Steamboat Springs, the Center for Visual Arts in Steamboat, and a number of art fairs sponsored by the Steamboat Springs Arts Council. Her work has been published in the Rocky Mountain News and Colorado Expressions Magazine, The Steamboat Pilot and Today and At Home Magazine. She was a founding member and co-owner of the Artists' Gallery of Steamboat, along with 23 other talented local artists. Dancy was also the Exhibit Director and curator of the gallery for it's first 4 years. The gallery was voted "Business of the Year" by Mainstreet Steamboat in 2007 and "Best of the Boat" Gallery. For the last 7 years Dancy has been the Grant Writer and an Exhibits Director at The Steamboat Art Museum, seeing them through a $1M Capital Expansion and into a new era of exciting Creative District growth for Steamboat Springs.

Dancy considers her two young sons to be her first true masterpieces, and her family the greatest reason to keep learning and striving as a painter.

Her work can be seen on her personal website, www.dancygouldstjohn.comor by visiting her studio in Steamboat Springs.