Artist Kim Randleas, center, chats with visitors Jeff Williams, left, and Dwaine Winchester about her work at the Dec. 16 exhibit in John Day.

Randleas highlights heritage of a past era

By Angel Carpenter

Blue Mountain Eagle

Sunshine brightens a Native American woman’s face as she stands confident, wrapped in the warmth of a buffalo hide, against a snowy backdrop of forested mountains.

“Between Two Worlds” is an oil painting in artist Kim Randleas’ growing portfolio of western-style art.

A Canyon City resident and Grant County native, Randleas began emerging as a professional artist in 2016, showing at the High Desert Museum in Bend. She’s experienced a whirlwind of activity since then.

In December, she was featured in the magazine Southwest Art.

She’ll have her biggest show to date March 14-17 at The Out West Art Show in Great Falls, Montana.

In her home studio, flooded with natural light, Randleas has stacks of canvases and copper panels ready for brushstrokes to tell a tale.

The title of one of her paintings, “Time Traveler,” points at the heart of what she portrays in her work, transporting the viewer to a past era with pioneers, cowboys and Native Americans of all ages.

The model for “Between Two Worlds” is John Day resident Natalia Yazzie.

“She’s a loving, caring nurse in the community,” Randleas said. “She’s a modern woman, but I’ve interpreted her as being someone from a different time.”

The painting also features contrast between light and dark, warm and cold.

“I love the drama of how the light plays on the skin, creating that feeling of the time of day,” Randleas said. “As soon as that light hits just right, it warms everything up.”

Art provides a way to bypass all social barriers, Randleas said, allowing her to “connect right with their heart.”

“When someone is viewing that painting for the first time, and they’re feeling and seeing for the first time what my original intention was, or they might be feeling their own emotions, it comes full circle,” she said.

Honoring heritage is another important part of Randleas’ work.

Her ancestors homesteaded in the Kimberly area, and she has some relatives of Native American descent.

She brought the city of John Day’s namesake, a fur trapper and explorer in the 1800s, to life through a painting featuring Prairie City resident Mike Springer.

Springer, a land surveyor who enjoys hunting and history, grew out his hair and a beard to pose in a photo for the painting.

No photos or paintings of the man John Day are known to exist, but through research Randleas discovered his height and build and his German ethnicity.

Springer wore period clothing while holding a black powder rifle, all owned by Walt Gentis of Canyon City who also made the rifle.

Randleas said when she was about 13, her father, Bill Robertson, was painting watercolors and encouraged her.

“I was always drawn to it,” she said. “My dad was always a big influence on me. I think very, very young he would give me little lessons on how to create depth or see depth.”

In high school, she gave her watercolor paintings to friends. She also drew with charcoal and later took two college art classes. Her artistic pursuits took a backseat when her family started a restaurant in John Day in 1999.

After years of long days of work at the restaurant, it sold in 2011, and her husband, Matt, bought an auto repair shop in John Day.

Randleas said there was a creative energy the restaurant provided, and she felt that outlet was no longer there.

Her dad brought an easel out of a barn in 2014 and suggested she try painting again.

“I let it sit there for a couple of weeks, then ordered acrylics and canvases and put some things together,” she said.

At first, she considered her time devoted to art a “guilty pleasure,” she said. Her studio was tucked away in a small room.

Her friend Kyle Cline advised her to give her art what it deserves.

“He told me, ‘Your art is nourishing your family, just as much as your family is nourishing your art,’” she said. “I was doing OK in this little corner then expanded and gave it what it needed, and it did develop. That was a turning point from going from hobby to professional — going from painting for myself or guilty pleasure to something my family appreciates, and people in the community appreciate.”