Ann Snyder liked to design and sew her own clothes and dabbled in crafts throughout the years. It wasn’t until her retirement 10 years ago that she discovered her inner artist after taking watercolor and acrylic painting classes at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, Ark., where she makes her home.
For a couple of years, Snyder’s art depicted scenes from the 1820s to 1920s era, but, she said, “I didn’t want to get stuck in one genre.”
Her artistic style began to expand when she added oil paints and the use of a palette knife — and sometimes her fingers — to her work, creating the desired effect she wanted in her paintings.
Snyder likes to add texture to her paintings by adding modeling paste, crumpled paper and often times dried acrylic paint that is scraped from her palette and glued in layers to her paintings.
The additions create collages, giving the art a three-dimensional effect.
“I like to think of my art as ‘Layers of Life,’ which is the title of my exhibit at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. The majority of my work comes from feelings within me. I don’t need a subject sitting in front of me to become excited about my art,” she said.
Snyder will exhibit a variety of her paintings, from Arizona sunsets to flowers and trees found in the Mountain View area, in the Mary L. Martin Gallery at the Bowlus.
The show opens Sunday with an artist reception at 2 p.m. The public is invited.
The gallery is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will be open at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 23 prior to the performance of Big Bad VooDoo Daddy.
‘Layers of Life’ is on display through Nov. 23.
SNYDER WAS born on a farm in Missouri but grew up in and attended schools in Wichita.
She worked for a number of years as a licensed Realtor in California before she and her husband, Joel, decided to spend their retirement years in Mountain View.
She is familiar with Iola and the Bowlus through visiting her sister and husband, Donna and Ray Houser.
