caroline's art

                  BIOGRAPHY 

I was raised in Hazel Dell Washington, not far from the Columbia River and down town Vancouver where I was born.  My mother who was single most of her life worked at  Nabisco, so we periodically received cookies.  Later on I also worked at Nabisco, after my mother died when I was 20 years old.  My father was absent most of my life and we reunited when he was 80 years old.  He served in the 2nd world war, Korean and Viet nam war.  He was quite a character and with his new found love taught me how to forgive, which turned out to be the best lesson I have ever learned.

I think my chaotic life and unsupervised childhood led me to use my imagination for company, creating places, things and people who visited me when ever I felt alone.  I didn't think about art or creating paintings, that didn't kick in until I was 52 years old and a friend introduced me to Dot Hall, a well known Artist in Red Bluff Ca.  In some way I think my childhood has helped me to be creative and take me places I have never been an experience feelings I never felt before.

Art is important to me because like day dreaming I can get lost in the creation of something new and interesting to me.  I only paint for me.  It is an adventure to see what new ideas I can come up with or new places I can go to with my own feelings.  Art has brought out the best in me. Although it has sometimes been an interesting hard road to travel, it has saved me from a disastrous hollow lonly road.  It allows me to express my self with out saying a word.  When the first strokes of starting a painting touch the canvas I feel a little hesitant, then before I know it I am caught up in the colors, shadows, and light.

I am not one who cares weather a painting sales as long as it has given my thoughts a freedom to express my self with color. I am a slow painter, always chasing the idea between each drying layer of oil applied.  Walking back and forth watching the painting as if stalking it waiting to see if I can  see the next step and feel next color.  It is exciting and interesting because I can't think of anything else that has captured me like art has.  I am still in the process of learning.  I am no means an accomplished artist, only a woman seeking to express herself in silence through color.

Dot Hall has impressed me with the idea that to paint you must see and feel.  You must have some emotion connected to the painting.  She is right.  The more I see and the more I feel the better I can express myself in painting.   I think she save my life by teaching me to paint and to feel.

I now have paintings in Montana Morrison Gallery and Heart Felt Design in down town Red Bluff, Ca.  Since December of 2010 I have been hanging my paintings at Simpson Christian College in Redding, Ca, which has also been an inspiration to me.   I am a member of the Red Bluff Art Association and  a board member of Tehama County Art Council.  I am retired from the University of Davis, Environmental Health and Safty Department. I owned a Pest Controll Company called Insecta and have two beautiful grown children.  I own a 54 acre ranch raising Miniature Donkeys, Gypsy horses and French bulldogs.  I seem to be able to connect with animals and take on the responsibility diligently.

My hope is to continue painting and discovering how to's and why's of creativities.  I am just a small unknown unique hobbyist who has found herself through the color and feeling of oil painting.

Caroling Elfving    Oil Painter