May 2022 - Two Sisters: Brush with Nature Lynette Redner & LuAnn Widergren

Coming in May, Beloit Art Center is pleased to host a painting exhibition of two sisters, LuAnn Widergren and Lynette Redner, who often plein air paint together. A First Friday Gallery Reception will be held May 6 from 5-7pm, with an ArtTalk, at 6pm.  Join LuAnn and Lynette as tell of some of their adventures and what they've learned out in the field.  

Lynette Redner
American Artist  
b. 1964
 
Lynette's entire life has been filled with art. She was born into a farm family of 5. Within her family were multiple creative interests in music, woodworking, and art.  Her sister, Lu Ann Redner Widergren helped encourage Lynette's art interests by holding drawing competitions with the neighbor kids and helping with 4H art projects.  On the family farm, Lynette's love of animals and nature became her universe.  She had years of owning horses.
 
Lynette  was too young to remember when the process of drawing and painting began but she remembers selling her first drawing (a giraffe) in first grade for 25 cents.    In high school, she was at a crossroads; she chose to go down the nursing degree path, but  she never abandoned the drawing and painting and knew that someday she would be back to art full time.  Much of her nursing career was also filled with paintings, medical illustrations, murals and pet portrait commissions.   Often, she decorated hospital walls and windows for the holidays,  small drawings for patients, or the  cover-up gowns of the staff to  the delight of the patients. Art to her, can assist with healing the emotions as well as  aiding in the physical healing pathway.  Her nursing took her across much of the United States opening her eyes to the love of landscape. The work ethic in the nursing field lent itself to Lynette's productivity and professionalism as an artist. She has passion, determination, focus and discipline.
 
  In 2017 she scaled back her hours as a nurse to part time and focused increasingly on her art. It was in that summer that she discovered the world of plein air events by attending a Jefferson Plein Air event. She had always enjoyed painting outdoors but painting at this event she discovered fellow artists to share the love and knowledge of making art. Lynette felt she had found her tribe. Lately, she has increasingly cut back in nursing hours, taking weeks and months off from that discipline and  creating new art, painting in plein air events,  selling her paintings at art fairs, taking painting trips with her sister, and teaching art. 
Lynette Redner has essentially managed her  choices in  her own art education and art pathway,  through selections of art workshops,   instructional books, podcasts, magazines ,videos,  and a virtual mentorship with a professional artist in Minnesota.  She believes, the learning never stops in an artist's journey. 
Her paintings are mostly done in watercolor or oil. She is known for  her  rural landscapes, horse and  animal paintings, as well as dog portraits.  She is said to capture  the personality of each animal. In landscape, she shares the energy and connection of the moment with the viewer.  She paints from her  two studios: a home studio, near Richmond, Wisconsin,  and another studio near Darien, Wisconsin. She considers the outdoor world to be her best studio and classroom of all. 
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AWARDS:
4th Place at Jefferson Plein Air 2021: Sold all art pieces
Meritorious Award in Richeson75 Landscape, Architecture , Seascape Competition. 2021; Watercolor
Meritorious Award in Richeson75 Landscape, Architecture , Seascape Competition. 2021; oil
State Award; Janesville WRAP 2021 
3rd Place Award: JPAC Holiday Show 2020
Honorable Mention: JPAC Holiday Show 2020
Honorable Mention: Between the Bluffs Plein Air Event 2019
Best of Show, Orfordville Art Fair; 2019
Honorable Mention, Cambridge WRAP show; 2019
State Award, Sun Prairie Pop Up WRAP show; 2018
Honorable Mention, Beaver Dam Plein Air Event; 2017
First Place, Three Tubes of Paint by Raven's Wish Gallery, Janesville, WI; 2017
Judge's First Place Choice, Lost Dutchman Show, Apache Junction, AZ; 1998
 
EXHIBITIONS:
Solo Show: Hedberg Public Library, Janesville, WI;  2014
Solo Show: Raven's Wish Gallery, Janesville, WI; October 2018
Janesville Performing Arts Holiday Show, Janesville, WI; November 2018-January 2019
Whitewater Art Alliance Holiday Show, Whitewater, WI; November-December 2018
Jefferson Plein Air, Jefferson, WI; 2017, 2019, 2021-4th Place 
Beaver Dam Plein Air Event; 2017-Honorable Award
Paint between the Bluffs, La Crosse, WI; 2018, 2019-Honorable Mention, 2021
Paint Cedarburg, Cedarburg, Wisconsin; 2019, 2021
 
EDUCATION: 
Bachelor of Science Nursing
 
WORKSHOPS:
Naples Art Workshop with Marc Anderson Jan 2022
Mentoring 10 sessions Joe Paquet 2020-2021
Online Jill Soukup June 2021
Madeline School of the Arts: John Cosby 2017, 2019
Madeline School of the Arts: Andy Evansen 2017
Madeline School of the Arts: Joe Paquet 2018
Madeline School of the Arts lectures: Joe McGurl, Billy-o O'Donnell, Joe Paquet 9/2017
Ingrid's Studio Chicago: Andy Evansen 2018
Lacrosse: Beth Bathe 2018
Joseph McGurl  2019
Thomas Schaller at Ingrid's Studio 2019
Mentoring with Joe Paquet: Start fall 2020
 
AFFILATIONS:
Wisconsin Regional Artists Association 
Whitewater Art Alliance 
Janesville Art League 
Wisconsin Plein Air Painters Association 
Oil Painters of America
American Impressionist Society
 
 
PUBLICATIONS:
Beloit Daily News; May 2018
Harvard Community Radio; May 2019
Fort Atkinson Radio Show for Jefferson Plein Air Event; June 2019
 
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​LuAnn Widergren
American Painter
b. 1959

As far back as Lu Ann Widergren remembers, she has loved making art, with first works done in crayon on the walls of the family farm in Clinton, WI.  It was a chaotic household of five children, where creativity was supported and modeled by talented parents. She earned her college tuition during high school doing art commissions honing her drawing skills. LuAnn headed off to be an art teacher after an art education degree from UW-Platteville, where she then spent a rewarding career teaching art, continuing to learn with a MS in art education and E.Ds. from NIU, directing the district fine arts programs, and doing a seven-year detour as a principal for a sweet elementary school. 

2014, LuAnn changed gears to focus on painting, and during this time discovered the world of plein air painting, through her artist sister, Lynette Redner.  Painting outdoors—which started out with feelings of near-terror when an observer looked at her easel’s potential wet mess—developed into a newfound passion. The mishaps along the way with boats rowing away, trucks parking in front of the subject and beach sand inadvertently becoming part of the piece, are all bonuses to the experience.  Her former science teachers might be surprised how much LuAnn now studies nature, not just staring at the clouds, to give paintings the essence of the scene on a flat panel. 
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As LuAnn works and studies representational painting, she has attained professional accomplishments. She has won numerous awards, in both national and regional shows, plein air events, and art festivals.  
In 2021, LuAnn opened her studio in Wisconsin to show her work and use as a working studio, that includes giving art lessons in person and online.
LuAnn resides in Holmes Beach, FL and on the Wisconsin River near Portage, WI –her son commented she is now a snowbird and a cheesehead – with her husband Jerry and paint dog Sadie. 
 
Selected Exhibitions and Awards
2022
·       3rd Place, Artists’ Guild of Anna Maria Island-Holmes Beach, FL
2021
·       Featured Artist, OutdoorPainter.com, PleinAir Magazine https://www.outdoorpainter.com/featured-artwork-luann-widergren
·       Honorable Mention, Impressionist Society Annual All Member Exhibition
·       Three Patron Artist's Awards, Fall Art Festival-Deland, FL 
·       Artists Choice Award Paint the Point Plein Air-Mineral Point, WI
·       3rd Place Paint the Point Plein Air-Mineral Point, WI
·       Honorable Mention Jefferson Plein Air-Jefferson, WI
·       Meritorious, Richeson75 Landscape, Seascape & Architecture Competition
·       American Impressionist Society Associate Member Exhibition
·       Wisconsin Plein Air Exhibition Richeson Gallery-Kimberly, WI
·       Southwest Art Magazine featured in Collecting Landscape Paintings
·       2nd Place Artists' Guild of Anna Maria Island Annual Exhibition-Holmes Beach, FL
2020
·       Cover Art Artists' Guild of Anna Maria Island-Holmes Beach, FL

• Huge Show Small Art Exhibition, Higbee Gallery-Costa Mesa, CA  
• Winter Park Paint Out Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Garden-Winter Park, FL 
• Small Works Exhibition Higbee Gallery-Costa Mesa, CA
• Third Place Artists’ Guild of Anna Maria Island Annual Exhibition-Bradenton, FL

2019

• PleinAir Magazine Featured in 17 Top-Notch Nocturnes
• President's Award Space Coast Art Festival-Viera, FL 
• Merit Award “Art Works Exhibition", Art Center Manatee-Bradenton, FL
• Commissioned Portrait, St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church-Kissimmee, FL 
• First Place Artists’ Guild of Anna Maria Island Annual Exhibition-Holmes Beach, FL

2018

• "Plein Air" Exhibition Studio at Gulf & Pine-Anna Maria, FL
• “A Plein Air Affair” Studio at Gulf & Pine-Anna Maria, FL
• “Dialogue of an Artist” Annual Exhibition Artists’ Guild of Anna Maria Island-Anna Maria, FL
• Commissioned Portrait for Holy Spirit Catholic Church-Mims, FL 
• Solo Show at Mosaic Hair Blowout Bar-Orlando, FL