The renowned painter Clyde Aspevig has won, to mention just a few, The Autry National Center John J. Geraghty Award, Frederic Remington Award, National Academy of Western Art’s gold medal in oil painting, Clyde discusses emotions, depth, atmosphere and the color we see in nature.
Clyde explained, “I grew up in Rudyard, Montana home to wheat farmers. Aside from being farmers both my parents were musicians. I took piano lessons and in my mind art and music were something that went together. Of course, as a child I had crayons. My first grade teacher told me I was an artist. But more, growing up in an isolated area observing the open spaces, looking at the stars, it made me realize landscape painting is the stage where everything takes place in the world. In a novel landscape sets the tone. My father died on a day the wind was blowing cold which was like a symbol for the mourning.”
Clyde added, “I was young, barely a teenager, when my father died. Before he died he bought one of my landscape paintings for $10. It was a symbol, a silent message that I am an artist.”
Clyde has traveled all over the world, to Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean. He has visited the great museums and talked to some of their curators and conservators.
Today he and his wife, Carol Guzman, also an artist, live in Montana where he likes to paint landscapes in oil. He likes landscapes that are untouched, natural, primal.
Clyde points out, “I don’t copy nature but interpret it. When I first started to paint I thought if I copy the landscape, it is real, but then I realized that is not how the brain sees it. The most important thing you can be is curious. When painting, I use the idea of the flow of energy.”
It is Clyde’s inner spiritual understanding of nature that attracts viewers to his art.
Clyde’s art work has been exhibited all over the country. Most recently in the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana.
Edith Lynn Beer is a seasoned journalist who covers news in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming.