Artist traslates hope into vibrant exhibit

Thursday, March 22, 2007

She remembers the huge mouse she drew, along with tiny footprints that trailed behind it, representing that in the library, you have to be as quiet as a mouse.

Since that contest, Rasmussen was hooked on art.

For her, it was a talent that came naturally. Her mother was a commercial artist who never worked for money, always doing work for church or schools. When she had work to get done, she often sat her seven children in front of pieces of white cardboard and markers in order to keep them occupied.

The ability to express themselves through works of art ran through her family, she said, as each one of her siblings was blessed with their own gifts; one is very good at caligraphy, another is great with pottery, some are great cooks and others are very crafty.

As evident in herself and her siblings, Rasmussen says that she believes everyone has their own way of expressing themselves, but it comes out in different ways.

For her, it's always been about art.

In high school, she made it her goal to take as many art classes as she could, often ending up with extra credits just so she could fit it in every semester.

In college she shifted her focus slightly, majoring in fine arts and graphic design, but also taking many drawing classes. After graduation, she scored a job designing brochures for an engineering firm and then moved to upstate New York and found herself designing T-shirts for a T-shirt factory.

But when life as a graphic designer wasn't working out as she expected, she went back to college and got her master's in elementary education, all the while maintaining an active interest in art.

Growing up, Rasmussen said she learned many things from her mother, but "also learned many things not to do from her."

She recalls her mother's nickname of "the gypsy" for her vibrant outfits and believes that's where her love of color came from.

"People who see my work always comment on the colors," she says, boasting canvas after canvas of bright tropical flowers and bold cityscapes painted in mostly pastels or watercolors.

Those vibrant pastels and watercolors can be seen now through April 26 at Gallery -30- in the Sewickley Herald office during an exhibit appropriately entitled, "Long Road Back."

Rasmussen admits that she's been in a "state of transition that has lasted a few years."

Over these last few years, she became a single parent and in order to create more income for herself and her daughter, she opened a coffee shop and art gallery on the first floor of her Carnegie home and across the street from a friend's gallery, the Third Street Gallery.

However, only four months after she opened her business, disaster struck -- the remnants of Hurricane Ivan.

She remembers standing on her front porch watching water spilling over from the creek. She ran over to her friend's gallery across the street to help pull artwork from the walls to save them from being ruined, but when she went back to her shop to get sandbags from the basement in an effort to keep water out, she noticed that she, too, had been a victim.

Three feet of water invaded her first floor.

That night, she recalls sitting in her daughter's upstairs bedroom watching from a window as cars were lifted by the rising water. Her daughter, she says, was with her father at the time.

"It never occurred to me that the building could collapse and I could die," she says. "It was so surreal."

Rasmussen ended up losing 20 paintings in the flood and spent three months cleaning the first floor.

Although the water receded and she was able to get the shop and gallery back up and running, the effects of Ivan remained.

Many of the businesses closed as a result of the flooding and in turn, many people simply didn't venture to Carnegie anymore. Hurricane Ivan changed the face of the town.

Because she wasn't busy, Ras-mussen, however, was able to rebuild some of the inventory she had lost in the flood.

But with business still down and following the death of her friend from the gallery across the street, she decided to close the gallery and shop last January.

Since then, she has taken on many jobs to support herself and six-year-old Mirra, including teaching classes at Sweetwater Center for the Arts, where she is able to forge both her love of art and her love for teaching.