"Paws for Love"

Acrylic on 8x12' panels
Created for Mendenhall Studios, mounted on 2nd and C in old town Eureka.

The “Second Street Women” project is the brainchild of four local painters - Joan Dunning, Linda Mitchell, Kathy O’Leary and Rachel K Schlueter - who are part of a larger group of female painters in Humboldt County. All professional artists who have known each other for many years. We’ve traveled together, painted together, supported one another’s creative endeavors, and spent countless hours discussing art and life over coffee and martinis. 

We’re calling our project Second Street Women because Kathy, Rachel and Linda all have studios on Second Street in Old Town Eureka, and because that’s where our current project is happening. It’s a public art project in which we’ll be creating four large (12’ x 8’) paintings on panels that will be mounted on the north wall of Mendenhall Studios. The panels will be framed and hung with accompanying plaques identifying the artist and describing the concept behind each work of art. Our goal is for this to look like an art exhibit in an outdoor gallery.

Each artist plans to paint a subject that has personally inspired her over the years. Painting something familiar will enable us to focus on the process of working BIG. This is a larger scale than we’re accustomed to and we’ll be using a medium most of us are unfamiliar with - acrylics. Still, we’re all at a point in our lives when we’re looking for new creative challenges and inspiration.