Marianne Graff
The PebbleCreek Art Club takes great pleasure in awarding Diana Horton-Smith as the November Artist of the Month. Diana was born and raised in sunny Southern California but moved to Arizona in August of 2016 after retiring from her job handling personal injury claims. She is married to Walt Smith, also a California native, and they have one daughter, Kelli, who is 29 years old and still resides in California.
When they first visited relatives in PebbleCreek more than 10 years ago, Diana knew immediately that this was where she wanted to live after she retired. Not surprisingly, the amazing art center we have here in PebbleCreek was one of the main factors that attracted her.
Diana considers herself to be a “novice,” compared with all of the talented artists we have in our community. She has no formal art education, and her first attempt at painting was about 25 years ago when she started dabbling with watercolors. She is primarily self-taught, learning techniques from books that she checked out from the local library. Her paintings at that time were mostly Haitian scenes or figures, a genre that she still loves because of the bright colors and wasn’t required drawing faces on her subjects. This lasted just a few years before other demands took precedence over her art. All of her paints and brushes were put away, and except for an occasional “Paint Nite” event here and there, she didn’t do any type of formal “art” until three years ago when she moved to Arizona.
Retirement has given Diana the opportunity to devote more time to developing and nurturing her creative abilities. Since moving to PebbleCreek, Diana has taken advantage of art classes offered here including Intuitive art, zentangle, fantasy faces, alcohol inks, mixed media, gourd decorating and colored pencil. So far, she is leaning toward acrylics as her favorite medium but is enjoying all of the mediums she has tried. She really enjoys doing paintings that are colorful, whimsical, and often abstract. Diana’s paintings have been accepted into several of the art shows at the Goodyear Library and her painting, Peeping Dragon is currently on display there.
Diana is also a member of the Ceramics Club, and you can usually find her at the Creative Arts Center every Monday and Tuesday turning her ceramics pieces into pieces of art.
We are truly inspired by the energy and imagination so generously shared by this talented artist. We congratulate Diana for her achievements and encourage you to view Diana’s art works in the Artist of the Month display window of the creative art center and at the Tuscany Falls and Eagle’s Nest clubhouses.