When I first got my cabin up in Skykomish in 2014, I was intrigued by the unique Town of Skykomish history. I did note however, as is often the case, women were often underrepresented in local historic books and photographs, leaving it a mystery what it was like to live historically as a woman in a small mountain town. I have now completed several paintings exploring what it would have been like to live in the area around the turn of the century, as a girl or a woman.
Having myself spent some of my favorite moments in the Skykomish river with my Sister April, particularly down by the “secret beech” past Milltown, I decided for the Alpine Sky art show at Sky Artworks to paint two girls from the turn of the century playing in the river.
In designing the painting, I took advantage of a new AI design tool called midjourney to develop the composition, which I used to generate reference images for the painting. This was the first time I ever used AI as a part of my painting design process — note the painting itself was still originally painted by me.
