Heidi Arneson works within three generations of women artists (mother Miriam Arneson and daughter Alberta Mirais). Beginning at nine years old, she was tutored by her artist mother in perspective, color, and common-sense: “If you want to be an artist,” Miriam said, “then you had better start making art!” Thereafter young Heidi studiously drew and painted, following her mother’s advice to work from life.
Ms. Arneson has generated a large body of paintings and has hung in many juried shows. Her work celebrates natural light. She paints plein air, ankle-deep in lakes amongst mosquitoes, wind, and the occasional shadow of a bald eagle, to record the changing light, playful intelligence, and constant shifting squirm of sun on trees, clouds, and water. As a painter, she honors the joyful urgency of the untamed, elemental, and timeless.
“All is in constant motion and change. All is interrelated in a joyful dance. And each thing is translucent, reflecting the other, in time, space, emotion, passion, and color. Painting frees my soul to join that dance. And now that my mother, the artist who mentored me, has passed over to the other side of that translucence, I feel her painting with me.”