20 Amazing Pics Revealing The Majestic Beauty Of The American West, By Phyllis Shafer

The American West is a canvas of natural wonders, from rugged mountains to expansive deserts, painted with a palette that changes with the seasons. Few artists capture this beauty as vividly as Phyllis Shafer, whose work offers a window into the soul of these landscapes. Here, we explore twenty of her most captivating pieces, each telling a unique story of the American West.

#1

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

How long have you been creating these paintings?

“I have been making things since I was a child, having grown up in a family that was always making stuff…not as ‘high art’ per se, but just making things to see what they look like! I had a good high school art program and that got me really thinking of myself as an artist. Having grown up in upstate NY, my professors in undergraduate school said you have to go to New York City. So, off to NYC I went and was making fantasy landscape paintings in my 5th-floor walk-up on the Lower East Side. I then made a trip with a friend across the country to California. After Chicago, the world really explodes in the American West and I was captivated.

I ended up moving to Oakland, CA and kept making these crazy, surrealistic landscape paintings. I went back to graduate school at UC Berkeley and got a Master’s of Fine Arts degree. I was showing my work in the Bay Area and looking for teaching jobs. A job listing for a full-time position came up at a Community College in South Lake Tahoe, CA. I applied and was accepted and I moved to South Lake Tahoe. I taught at the community college for 27 years and retired from that position in 2021. It was during my free summers in Tahoe that I really began to work ‘en plein air’, but still bringing in vestiges of my surrealistic style from my Bay Area work. Slowly my current style emerged and I began to get recognition for it in the form of shows, reviews, and sales.”

#2

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

What influenced or inspired you to pursue this particular art form?

“I have long been a fan of early 20th c. Regionalist painters like Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. I feel like my paintings are a mixture of direct observation, with attention to the specific forms of the flora and fauna of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and my need/desire to exaggerate and stylize the forms found in nature. I also love to spend time in nature and so plein air painting puts me directly out into the beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains, or whatever landscape in which I am traveling. The inception for all my paintings begins from being in a particular place and feeling its rhythms and textures. I lean into that feeling through exaggeration, scale shift, and a need to curve and undulate the forms.”

#3

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

Could you please share some insights into your creative process?

“Well, I think I covered that in the first two questions, but if I had to add something it would be that as a middle-class child destined for a State University education in the 1970s, I didn’t receive what many would call a very good education. I never had a professor lay out a palette or do a demonstration on painting or drawing. It was mostly conceptual and the overriding message was: make it big and make it personal. However, that lack of technical training in some ways left me open to find my own individual path, rather than cookie-cutter paintings that resembled my professors’ work. I always knew that my art had to be a reflection of my own thoughts, feelings, and experience. That, to me, was the most valuable part of my education. And teaching studio art and art history at a community college for 27 years made me a better painter because I had to intellectualize, communicate, and demonstrate the building blocks of painting and drawing to students in the first two years of their undergraduate education. So, in the end, I think I have forged my own path to a very idiosyncratic style my work reflects today.”

#4

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#5

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#6

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#7

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#8

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#9

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#10

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#11

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#12

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#13

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#14

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#15

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#16

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#17

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#18

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#19

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

#20

Image source: Phyllis Shafer

Phyllis Shafer’s journey from upstate New York to the vast, awe-inspiring landscapes of the American West has been one of exploration and artistic growth. Her paintings, which blend observation with a touch of surrealism, capture the unique beauty of nature in a way that invites viewers to see the world through her eyes. As Shafer continues to create and exhibit her work, her art remains a testament to the enduring allure of the landscapes she so passionately depicts.