Cruising Downstream Painting

Since March 2020, Brenda has been going on daily walks through her neighborhood and nearby woods, giving treats to dogs and horses met along the way while taking lots of photographs of things she finds beautiful: the light through the trees and the overwhelming varieties of greens and blues. It was only recently that she started painting from these images in addition to her first artistic love, the figure. Before 2023, she taught at Cornish College of the Arts before entering the field of nonprofit leadership in 2000. From 2018 to 2022, Brenda served as part-time executive director for the Maple Valley Creative Arts Council, which provided her the fertile ground to bring a collaborative dream to life - Paint By Tunnels, a community mural program in partnership with the King County Department of Parks & Natural Resources and the City of Maple Valley, and the program’s inaugural mural artist. During this time, she also served on the City of Maple Valley’s Public Arts Commission which installed two major public art projects and several wrapped utility boxes. Born in 1967 and raised among engineers, this Southern California native defied generations of tradition by choosing Art. However, tinkering and problem-solving are in her blood and inherent in her work, personally and in the community. Brenda’s work can be found in private collections, journals, publications, and a tunnel on the Cedar to Green Rivers Trail in Maple Valley. She has lived in the Pacific Northwest since 1999 and in Maple Valley Heights for fourteen years with her boat-building sweetie, Ike, and cat, Madison. When not in the studio, you can find her helping out in the boat shop (if not on the water!), working on perfecting her pie crust, or out in the woods.