Written by Lara Eichenberger on June 17, 2019
Main Street Artists Gallery in Quincy is pleased to announce a new show by Taylorsville artist Sally Yost: “Mountains and Beavers,” and “Adventures with Norma Lewis,” an homage to her long time art partner in crime.
The show runs from June 5 – 29, with a Champagne Opening on Friday, June 7 from 5-7pm. Paintings and prints by Quincy artist Norma Lewis are in sharp focus at this show. Norma passed away on New Year’s Day this year. She and Sally were long time plein air painting and printmaking partners, are among the founding members of the Main Street Artists Gallery ten years ago. Sally and Norma met through Marv Schmidt’s life drawing classes at Feather River College and became good friends while traveling to Chico State to take printmaking classes in the late 80’s. Earlier, they both had studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) in Oakland. For more than 30 years their art adventures took them painting to many places….Lassen Vocanic National Park, Indian Valley, Bucks Lake, Silver Lake, Sierra Valley, Montana, and a special trip to see the world renowned sandhill crane migration on the Platte River in Nebraska. On display will be several prints from of their years of pulling etchings, mono prints and collographs at the Chico State University Printmaking Department. Lewis / Yost prints and paintings from the same location or of the same topic will be displayed side by side. Sally has eight new large oil paintings for the show. Two are based on plein air pencil and gouache images done while in Norma’s company. After art school, Sally had a 30 year career as a graphic designer and calligrapher, designing posters, brochures and booklets for hundreds of clients. On her many backpacking and camping trips with husband Michael in the 1980’s, she started landscape plein air painting, first with colored pencils, then pastels. Currently she works with oils and gouache (an opaque watercolor.)