Palimpsest Paintings

After retiring from a successful career as an electrical engineer, Tracy Horner and her husband relocated to Prescott, Arizona. They arrived just before the pandemic, and once settled Tracy began looking for a creative community. She discovered the Arts Prescott Gallery and immediately knew it was the right home for her artistic journey.

Tracy works in several media, including fiber arts, digital painting, and jewelry. Her current focus is watercolor painting created on US Geological Survey topographical maps. Guided by her engineer’s mind, she approaches composition with structure and intention. Her paintings often feature the plants and animals native to the mapped region, expressed through clean geometric shapes and a unique blend of precision and whimsy.

Along with her paintings, Tracy also creates jewelry using electronic components and runs a side business designing and selling cross-stitch patterns. Her artistic range is wide, inventive, and full of delightful surprises.

Join us in December to hear Tracy share her process, inspiration, and her compelling approach to watercolor painting on maps.

Explore Tracy’s Work

Website: tracyhorner.com
Cross-stitch designs: inkcircles.com
Instagram: inkcircles.xs

San Francisco based artist Ellen Little grew up in Los Angeles CA and earned her BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena CA. Upon graduating she moved to New York to work as an art director at Ogilvy and Mather and teach at the School of Visual Arts. Next she moved to San Francisco and founded the graphic design firm, Little Design Group and taught at the Academy of Art. After 10 years Ellen closed Little Design and has been painting full time ever since.

In 2017 Ellen founded Dogpatch Collective, a community of 17 artist studios in the Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco. In 2022 she was awarded a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission to start the Dogpatch Collective Artist Residency program which provides free studios and mentorship to artists from historically underserved communities.

Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries around the country including DeYoung Museum CA, Milton Art Museum MA, Napa Valley Museum CA, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art CA and Triton Museum CA. Ellen’s work is included in over 500 private collections around the world as well as the public collections of UCSF Mission Bay, San Francisco CA, the University of Iowa, Iowa City IA, Phipps Botanic Garden, Pittsburgh PA, and multiple Kaiser Permanente hospitals throughout CA.

For more information, check out the article in LUXE magazine, which talks about her work

https://luxesource.com/article/ellen-little-san-francisco-watercolor-artist

Patti Gardiner

Creative Freedom and My Artist Residency Experience

Join us for a special presentation by Patti Gardiner, a multidisciplinary artist whose creative journey centers around capturing the hidden beauty of the natural world.

Last summer, Patti was awarded an artist residency along the Tongue River, where she explored the intricate relationship between water and the life it sustains. This experience led to her newest body of work, "Taking Root"—a powerful visual meditation on nature’s resilience and grace.

Patti will also share her experimental digital cyanotype series, "After the Bloom," which pairs the delicate shadows of wildflowers with macro photographs of their seeds and pods. The result is a striking reflection on the quiet transformation that follows the peak of bloom.

With a focus on the unseen, the overlooked, and the quietly magnificent, Patti’s work invites us to reconnect with nature, to pause in wonder, and to consider what’s worth protecting.

Come be inspired by her story, her process, and the vision behind her work.

"Ever since I can remember, I've always seen the world as color—be it in dreams while I slept, in everyday moments and movements, or in painting flowers from my own garden. I paint 'ideas'."

Judith Austen is an accomplished artist and writer whose work spans decades of creativity and storytelling. A graduate of Pratt Institute with an MFA in Art Education from Boston University, Judith taught art at the renowned Shady Hill School in Cambridge, MA, while continuing to develop her vibrant and reflective painting practice. Her work has appeared in numerous group shows and several one-woman exhibitions throughout the Boston area.

This special presentation, "A Painter’s Journey: from 18 to 81,” offers a visual journey through Judith’s early works to her present-day creations, accompanied by the stories and inspirations that shaped them.

Join us for an intimate look at Judith's artistic journey—one that transforms dreams, color, and everyday moments into timeless works of art.