Gale Baldasare
Linda Strauss-Lewis
What’s that sound I hear? A short, tinkling burst of laughter? There it goes again and again! Gale Baldasare must be nearby! No one brings more spontaneous joy to a room than Gale! The PC Art Club has named Gale as its September Artist of the Month and just writing about her makes me happy. Gale has joined me for two classes this year and it has been my complete pleasure to work with her. Few people have as much enthusiasm for life. Moreover, she’s so willing to share it with all of us, students and instructor alike, that every session is a total joy!
Gale gives heaps of credit to all the instructors she’s studied with at PebbleCreek, but clearly her talent is inborn and has just been waiting to find a knowledgeable outlet. For example, she began with Fred and Lorraine Alves in 2012. She says of her first session, “I had no idea how to even put colors onto a palette, but with Fred’s patient assistance I actually completed my first piece during that session. I called it My Bear-Dog because no one could decide if it was a bear or a dog!” (Hear her laughter?) She proceeded to study with Lorraine, Judy Hale, Sherri Van Schaick, Sharon Adamy and others including me and has grown exponentially, breathtakingly in just two short years.
For example, Chris and Erin’s Boys, the charcoal painting accompanying this article, was one of multiple portraits she completed in my Grandchildren’s Portrait class. I asked her if she’d done portraits before since this was clearly not the work of a beginner. She said, “Well, I love drawing eyes, which inevitably sent me in the direction of people and animal portraiture, but prior to PebbleCreek I’d only done one watercolor of a cow which now resides in my laundry room! Tinkling laughter followed that comment, acknowledging how far she’s come! “In fact,” she adds, “portraiture has become my passion.”
Gale is from Michigan. Her mother painted; her sister paints and quilts and I believe she showed me a painting done by her grandmother as well. However, until PebbleCreek, she says she had little opportunity to grow her talent. She and husband Mike met in Tacoma, Washington, where they ran an RV business for many years. That occupied most daylight hours. Then, in 2006, they took a motor home trip and found themselves in Surprise, Arizona. They bought a home and went back and forth between Washington and Arizona until 2010 when they sold their business and retired. By chance, they visited PebbleCreek, stopped by our art facilities, fell instantly in love, pounded a for sale sign in their Surprise home and, well, here they are much to our good fortune.
Welcome, Gale, to the pantheon of PebbleCreek artists to win this recognition!