Dial back 60 years; it’s 1962, and 6-year old Patricia McGeeney is settling into a small studio at the back of Mittel’s Art Supply Store in Santa Monica, California. She is about to take the first steps toward her dream of becoming an artist.

Already a prolific drawer of horses, McGeeney has impressed her mother with her artistic skills, so much so that she has signed her daughter up for art lessons in the store’s studio.

“The high ceilings, dingy atmosphere, and smell of turpentine had a profound effect on me,” McGeeney says. “I never wanted to do anything else with my life but wield a paint brush, and that’s exactly what I did.”

Read the full article in the January/February 2023 issue.

Cutting It Close

Oil
16″ by 20″

“One of several Western pieces I’ve been working on focusing on cowgirls.”

Ladybugs

Oil
16″ by 20″

“This painting depicts my granddaughter in all the unbridled energy and joy of a two-year-old.”