Marianne Graff
The PebbleCreek Art Club is very pleased to award Candis Kloverstrom May Artist of the Month. Candis has Scandinavian family roots which instilled in her an appreciation for culture. As a teen, she migrated with her family to Denver, Colorado and there eventually met her husband, Mark, started a family in 1974, and resided in the state until coming to PebbleCreek in 2017.
After high school, Candis entered training to become a registered X-ray Technician and worked in that field for four years. Her love of art soon led her back to school; she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Colorado and added classes at the Rocky Mountain School of Art and Design. She describes one of her outstanding achievements as “incredibly fun,” namely, developing and publishing a community cookbook called Denver Men in the Kitchen with the help of prominent citizens such as then Mayor John Hickenlooper. Candis also has two of her bronze works on permanent display in the Douglas County Court House in Castle Rock, Colorado. At present, Candis and Mark belong to the Desert Springs Community Church that is sponsoring an emerging Christian art group. On May 10, together with 40 other artists, Candis will be participating in an annual show there entitled “Bridging the Gap.”
Candis discovered a talent for drawing people in high school when she experimented with oils in the tradition of the Old Masters. Her later medical training in the human form, bone structure in particular, inspired her to study life drawing in college. Mindful of her expertise and experience, Candis began to focus on portraiture. Although she has experimented with pastels, watercolor, sculpture, pen and ink, and handmade papers, Candis now prefers to paint her portraits primarily in oils because of its flexibility, buttery flow across the canvas and brightness of color.
Candis also does painting with Biblical themes or messages of special significance, such as a self-portrait entitled “He Has My Back” developed and completed when she was about to undergo cancer surgery. She has been studying for two years under award winning painters Fred and Lorraine Alves in PebbleCreek, and also explored Painting a Child in a workshop by Jean Hildebrant. Candis is very dedicated and enthusiastic about her adventures into art and a strong spiritual component accentuates her life journey and search for excellence. We are grateful that in the fall of 2019, she will be offering a class in portrait oil painting in PebbleCreek.
Candis has won several awards: she won third place for a portrait of her grandmother in the Spring Art Show; and has just been juried by the Goodyear Arts and Culture Commission into the Goodyear Branch Library Fine Art Show. We look forward to increasing collaboration with this distinguished artist. You are invited to view her work, including a portrait of her grandson, Darin, in the Creative Arts Center and the Tuscany Falls and Eagle’s Nest Clubhouses.