In the Nature of Things: A Painting Exhibition by Carol Schmauder

Carol Schmauder was born and raised in Spokane, Washington, where she currently lives with her husband, Glenn. Like most artists she showed interest in art at an early age and has experimented with several media over her life time. She raised nine children and worked a full time job so had little time for painting while her children were growing up.

She is a graphic designer that entered the world of fine art in 1988 after taking watercolor classes from Stan Miller and MaryAnn Figgins. Carol enjoyed this medium for twenty years before she began using acrylics for most of her work in 2017. Her professional life has led to participation in over a hundred exhibitions; both solo and in groups. She has paintings in collections nationwide and has won numerous awards.

Because she "doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up", Carol experiments with different styles of art. She has experienced great success with her Shattered Reality series and is best known for this fun style of painting starting with a traditional subject and creating sections of warm and cool colors playing off of each other. Dark and light sections also add life to these paintings. She enjoys painting in different forms of abstract art as well as traditional forms. She has no desire to quit exploring different techniques and art forms.

Carol enjoys painting themes that are happy in nature. Even though she has experienced many very rocky patches in life she has no desire to incorporate feelings of angst into her work. She feels that there are too many beautiful things in life to concentrate on rather than those that are sad in nature and Carol focus her paintings on these.

The artist says of her work: "Painting brings me much peace and happiness. If my paintings bring joy to the viewer then I have accomplished my goal."