OCTOBER 2016
Iowa , Four Seasons ; Spring , Summer , Autumn Winter ” pastel each 60 ” x 40 .
No Ordinary Moments on Highway 61
by Connie Cherba
There ’ s still time to get to the Dubuque Museum of Art to enjoy Ellen Wagener ’ s No Ordinary Moments , an extraordinary collection of Iowa landscape pastels on exhibit in the Falb Family Gallery through November 6 .
Wagener , a DeWitt , IA native , paints familiar Iowa vistas in a panorama of colors . She spent four years working on the paintings featured in the current Dubuque Museum of Art exhibit . “ Most of the work really comes from this area – along Highway 61 ,” said Wagener . “ Highway 61 has become my muse . As a child we took old Highway 61 every week , and sometimes during the week , up to Maquoketa and out to the family farm in Andrew .”
Why the title No Ordinary Moments ? “ I was so familiar with Highway 61 as a child , when I came back to it as an adult in the ‘ 90s , it was familiar and new at the same time ,” explained Wagener . “ So even though you might go up a road a million times , and it seems ordinary , for me it was entirely different as I anticipated every turn , knowing where my favorite field might be and how it might look in each season and with the change of crops and what the nuance of the weather and the light might be . Each moment on the road was ordinary , significant , and blissful all at the same time .”
Wagener , the second of four children , was born in Maquoketa in 1964 . At a very early age , she already had artistic ambitions . “ I remember making the bed with my mom when I was about three years old , and I remember announcing to her that I would either be an artist or a nun ,” she said . “ That was it . I was raised in a family that was Catholic , and I thought the two highest things that you could do with your life were to be an artist or a nun .”
Chalk drawing and finger-painting occupied a lot of Wagener ’ s child-
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