Artist's Biography; Gregg Bradely Caudell, 2025

 I paint on location a lot using canvas as a camera. Plein air painting is the zen of painting. It is being in the moment.  It is a light poem reflecting creation from the mirror of a single soul. Light stopped in the fabric of time, becoming material. Starlight caught in the web of earth's karma on the eternal path of existence. 

I work en plein air daily as a gardener works his garden, in contrast to my studio work which is a reflection of what I've found most significant in those daily efforts. It usually has to do with light and substance. Light is the substance of the universe from which all is derived. It is a marvelous yet challenging privilege to be a painter. I love painting en plein air.  It is a method that reflects today's world both internally and externally. Our internal clock is wound tight in a virtual world. Stopping that world for a moment and translating it into the eternal truth of a painting is a constant goal.

Working in the studio is taking up more of my time.  I focus on projects to establish a body of work that pursues continuity in both technique and subject matter.  One painting leading to the next and the next and the next with occasional aberrations that become tangential with prospects such as portraits and the occasional one off piece that may be a fish or an angel or an angel that is a fish.  Imagination is a tool as much as a palette knife or paint brush.  Reality is a source of inspiration that I use as a point of departure to arrive at a goal that is a painting to share the journey with others.  Life is short and if I can, I hope to share some little impression on the life I was given so that others might know I was here and enjoyed the privilege with all my heart and soul. 

Many of my pieces are farmscapes as I live in farm country and am a farmer myself.  For many years I only used horses. You will find a gallery of equine art in my portfolio.  Having paid my dues hoofing it behind a team of horses for 35 years, I bought my first tractor when I turned 60 which the horses greatly appreciated.  They now are retired and enjoy munching the good hay their tractor provides.  

Horses were a good life and took me many places.  Logging in the Redwoods of California and driving horses on Rockefeller's roads of Acadia National Park.  I now spend my time pushing paint around and hope to share what I find interesting and important in the world around me.

I also fish a lot.  My motto "every good fishing hole is a good painting", if I can't catch a painting a fish will do. lol

About painting; When a painter paints the scene of a place, he owns it.  Owning a place is as important as it is to have the next meal.  In pre-european days of North America, all activity and culture was geared to the pursuit of food.  The places that nurtured them became places to own, your territory, something to defend and consequently take from those weaker than your tribe and marked as petroglyphs on the wall of a cliff.  It is human nature to leave your mark. 

A plein air painter has the experience of owning the scene he dipicts. Not only that, he packs it and takes it with him to be repeatedly enjoyed.  To paint a place is to know that place, acquiring the visual vocabulary of that place.  Doing so one is in harmony with the moment and has the opportunity to know the earth better each time he paints its likeness. It is a map of a person's life.

As I get down the road of life I find the challenge and joy of creating is what motivates me.  Sometimes while deeply into a painting I forget to breadth and get a rush out of the adventure of pushing on to the next idea, the next painting.

My family and I, find ourselves to be blessed to live in paradise on a ranch in NE. Washington.  I never go begging for subject matter.  With 1000' cliffs rubbing shoulders above the Sanpoil River where once 100 lb salmon spawned and died.  Today we work with the Colville Tribe to bring back chinook and kokanee as well as endangered red band trout in Betty's Brook that joins the Sanpoil River.  It's the headwaters of what was at one time a great fishery supporting the native family's in the valley.  We have great hopes that salmon will thrive to establish themselves above Grand Coulee Dam, one of the impediments that prohibited salmon from half their native waters that included the west slope of the Rocky Mountains at Lake Columbia, B.C.  I look forward to being part of their return and do quite a few paintings about that subject.  It's a spiritual journey both for myself and the earth that my paintings are a totem to sing the salmon back.

Summary of Juried Shows and Events:

2020-2023 Gallery Representation and shows at Confluence Gallery Twisp, Winthrop artists co-op and Arthouse Designs, olympia, wa.

2020 Liberty Gallery, Spokane, WA

2020 Color of Words, Confluence Gallery, Twisp, WA

2019 Batdorf and Bronson, Olympia Fall Artwalk

2019 Pop Up Show, Olympia, Wa Spring Art Walk

2019 Exhibiting current work at Winthrop Artist’s Co-op

2019 MAC Art Source, art rental program, Spokane, WA

2018 Ferry County Memorial Hospital public art collection

2018 Confluence Gallery, Group Invitational

2018 Exhibiting current work at Winthrop Artist’s Co-op

2017 MAC Art @ Work, Spokane, WA

2017 Confluence Gallery, Group Invitational

2016 Olympia, Wa., Spring Art Walk

2016 MAC Art @ Work, Spokane, WA

2016 Confluence Gallery, Group Invitational

2015 Moses Lake Museum and Art Center, one artist show, 

2014 Olympia, WA Fall Art Walk, featured at the Art House Designs Gallery

2013 Columbia Center for the Arts, Hood River, OR plein air event 

(Juried in to show annually since 2008) 

2013 Parklane Lane Gallery, Kirkland, WA Summertime Show  

2013 Art House Designs, Olympia, WA one artist show 

2012 Confluence Gallery, Twisp, WA, two man show with sculptor, Simon Kogan 

2012 Scotch Peaks Wilderness, Sandpoint, Idaho, plein air paint out

2011 NW Museum of Culture, Spokane, WA, group show and auction 

2010 Scotch Peaks Wilderness, Plein Air Paint Out, Sandpoint, Idaho 

2009 Coos Museum of Art, Expressions West, Coos Bay, OR group show 

2009 Barrister Winery, Featured Artist for Art Walk, Spokane, WA 

2009 US Plein Air Open, Langley, WA 

2009 Parklane Gallery,Juried Kirkland, WA 

2008 Red Hawk Gallery, Plein Air Invitational, Sandpoint 

2008 Moses Lake Museum Central Washington Regional Juried Art Exhibition 

2008 Museum of Arts and Culture, Kress Gallery, Spokane, WA, one artist show 

2008 Wallowa Valley Art Festival and Paint Out, Joseph, OR 

2008 Coupeville Art Center, U.S. Open Plein Air Paint Out 

2008 Oil Painters of America, Plein Air Paint Out, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 

2008 Coos Bay Coos Bay Art Museum, 'Expressions West' Regional Competition 

2008 Western Paper Company, 2008 Invitational Show, Kintsler Gallery, Seattle 

1972-1979 Spokane Museum of Native American Culture Western Art Show

Awards: 

2015 Best of Show, Confluence Gallery, Invitational

2013 Purchase Prize Award, Hood River Plein Air Paintout, Hood River, OR

2012 Best of Show, Scotchman’s Peak Plein Air Paint Out, Hope, ID 

2012 Artist Choice Award, Scotchman’s Peak Plein Air Paint Out 

2011 Best of Show Annual Gallery Exhibition, Coulee City, WA

2007 Best of Show, Moses Lake Museum of Arts and Culture, Regional Competition 

2024 3rd place, Gonzaga University, Regional Landscape Competition, cash award $250

Galleries: 

Outskirts Gallery, Hope, ID 

Confluence Gallery, Twisp, WA 

Art House Designs, Olympia, WA 

Washington State Capitol Legislature, by invitation 

NW Museum of Culture, art rental program, Spokane WA

Winthrop Artist’s Co-op

References:

Susie Englestadt, Arthouse Designs, Olympia, WA

Tammy.gabbert@northwestmuseum.org

The Inimitable Kally Thurman, Hope, ID

Publications, Instructional Videos and Illustrations;

Farmer’s Almanac

Small Farmer’s Journal

Rural Heritage Magazine

Publisher, Horse Logger’s Int. News

Author; Horse Logger’s Manual

Co-producer, Video; A Day Horse logging, The Basics

Education:

1972 – 1975 Eastern Washington State College 

  Print making with Bruce Beal 

1975-76 Fort Wright College 

  Oil painting with Charles Palmer, Al Ring 

  Sculpture, Sister Paula Mary Turnbull 

1974-76 Life drawing, Stan Taft

1976-1977 Spokane Community College 

  Certified Welder, Ironworker’s Local #14 apprenticeship 

Workshops Taught: 

2011 Organized and hosted an artist plein air retreat and workshop at our ranch on the Sanpoil River near Republic, WA 

2013 Basics of Oil Painting, Gallery 2, Grand Forks, BC

2014 Basics of Oil Painting, Grand Coulee, WA

2015 Basics of Oil Painting, Coulee City, WA

Workshops and mentors:

1987 Ned Mueller, Clarkston WA 

2005 David Alexander, Kelowna, BC 

2007 Glenn Grishkoff, Sandpoint, ID 

2007 William F. Reese, Wenatchee, WA 

2008 Leonid Gervits, Gage Academy, Seattle, WA 

2011 Simon Kogan, Olympia, WA 

Online body of work;

www.greggcaudell.com

www.gregg-caudell.pixels.com  Online store and fine art swag.

contact;

Gregg Caudell

Republic, WA 

gcaudell@msn.com

509-775-2130

 Standing on the beach of the Sea of Cortez, I saw dorado swimming in the waves.  I'm starting to understand acrylics and eagerly look forward to new ideas and the next painting.  I take a break and go cross country skiing as winter continues to get along but feel as if my toes are buried in the warm sands of the beach as I imagine the sun setting in the tropics of my mind.

 It has been a pleasure although a challenging one, to work in acrylics to express my ideas.  After an inspiring trip to the Sea of Cortez  after the dreary taking a break from the grey of winter in the North.  I think I understand why Mexican art is so colorful.  It must be the light at the Tropic of Cancer.  I look forward to spending more time there to discover why else the house are so colorful and the culture is as spicy as its food.

Sea of Cortez, 12x24, acrylic, Available, email; gcaudell@msn.com

Working with acrylics has been daunting although once I've found the right process I'm excited to pursue more work.  It has it's detractions but it has attributes that oils don't allow.  I especially like how fast it dries so one can proceed with the next part of the process.  It's also less toxic than oils and their solvents.  Something that is problematic in the closed space of my studio, even with an exhaust fan.  I like large washes to achieve effects although I like working impasto en plein air, I have yet to develop a good impasto technique in acrylics but have alot of exploration to do with achieving new effects with acrylic mediums.

My 50 year reluctance to using acrylics has been a dedication to the heritage of art history bias that "important" paintings are oil paintings.  I see now how rediculous that prejudice is especially with the advent of digital art, something like how the artists of the 1800's felt about painting when photography came along.  Today there is a question whether digital art is art.  Of course it is, art is the expression of ideas by mark making.  I doesn't matter if that mark was made by a stone age artist or a person or machine using "code" to generate an image.  Fear of change is fatal.

 San Jose del Cabo, Baja California and the Sea of Cortez otherwise know as the Gulf of California.  The resort Meca of Baja.  Extrordinary disparity between the have and have nots.  One dependent on the other, both in a landscape of sun and the fecudity of the Sea of Cortez, that the famous marine explorer, Jacque Cousteau called the Aqarium of the World.  

As winter buries us in snow and cold we seek the opportunity to re-charge solar selves under the sun at the Tropic of Cancer.  As John Steinbeck wrote in his "Log of the Sea of Cortez", the desert is only a footnote to the Sea of Cortez".  A place that still seems to be full of life despite the assault open Earth's habitats.  Although the fishery may be smaller and pearls no longer the treasure locked along the shore by oysters, there is still an admrable spectrum of wildlife both marine and avian.  Whales and manta rays swim with pelagic fish and frigate birds, pellicans and fish hawks.  I'm sure the desert has it's features but the ocean compels my interest.

Wandering the tourist part of San Jose one finds the typical merch one would anywhere in Mexico's resort towns.  I did find the central palaza which was an energized community event where local families, artists and musicians played off of one another.  

                         

Fishermen that we are, we scored a trip with Captan Allehandro and young deckhand Christian who put us on Dorado.  A delicious fish that is milder than tuna but the same flavor.  A new favorite.  After catching 4 of them we went searching for Marlin without success.  Winter is less successful than fishing in the summer but far more pleasant than summer temperatures of 100+ degrees.  We enjoyed a pleasant 80 degrees and slept outside under the stars in the cool off shore breezes. 

I look forward to going back and make it my own happy place.  Not a difficult task as there will be much fishing and new paintings.  One goal will be to learn enough Spanish to get to know the locals.

Vayacon dios me amigos and amiga.

 Place, as in plein air.  Because I believe in reincarnation i.e. that not only one's body is recycled by nature but one's soul is recycled on the wheel of karma to learn the lessons one needs to grow as a being, that place is where one is launched/reborn or to start again.  I feel that place must be memorized so that one's soul/spirit can begin again.  I record that place by painting en plein air.  I am memorizing/memorializing the Sanpoil Valley as that place.  Curiously I must have a lot to learn because most all of my life for many moves has been along the 48th parralell of the U.S. Perhaps I was with David Thompson.  (look up who died with him along the 48th parallel when he was surveying the 49th paralell.

"Sleeping Salmon Mountain", 12x24, acrylic, Available, email; gcaudell@msn.com

"Winter, Sanpoil Valley", 30x40, oil, SOLD

 The cold and snow continues in the the mountains of eastern washington.  Painting en pleinair is a challenge but one perseveres hoping for the warm spring days to come.  The birds are anxious and have delayed nest building and the bees are hunkered down hoping for trees to bloom and provide badly needed pollen to sustain themselves and grow their brood to replace all the workers that didn't make it to spring.  C'mon girls hang in there!

 Raven and Coot, 6"x14", acrylic 

Raven and Coot

Tsimshian

Myths and Legends of Alaska, Katherine Berry Judson

A LONG time ago, Raven wanted all the birds to look well, so he painted them.  Raven painted Coot last.  Then Coot began to paint Raven, who wanted many bright colors.  So Coot painted Raven with bright colors with one hand, but in the other hand he hid charcoal.  When Raven looked away, Coot quickly blackened all the bright colors with charcoal.  Then Raven was angry and he chased Coot.  But Coot ran too quickly, so Raven threw white mud at him, white mud which spattered over Coot.  Therefore Coot had white spots on his head and back.  But Coot flew away and left Raven all black.

Peace Angels, digital drawing

 The anxiety and fear of the day

 weighs on my happiness like a cloud hiding the sun on a cold winter day.  

I kick a mosaic of autumn leaves and angels fly from my feet bringing a smile.

Betty's Brook #5, 30x40, oil

 

Betty's Brook #4, 36x36, oil