Cami Thompson's Artist's Statement: Cami Thompson is passionate about her art. A native of Michigan, she has lived and worked in the Rocky Mountains for the past 40 years, which has helped her to paint the natural landscape, its wildlife and people in a celebration of light and color. Having moved to the Taos area in northern New Mexico in 2001, she is busy producing numerous works reflecting the incredible scenery of her natural environment.

While visiting Taos in 1987, Cami met Joseph Nordman, a student of Nicolai Fechin at the Fechin House, now the Taos Art Museum. Mr. Nordman wrote the wonderful article on Fechin for the “Western Art Digest” in 1985. After their meeting, Mr. Nordman came to Cami’s home in Colorado and taught her how to paint outside! It was a pivotal point in her painting career. The birds were singing, the wind was blowing and Cami loved the experience so much that from that time forward, her studio expanded to the outdoors.

In the tradition of plein air artists, Cami paints the scenes around her, concentrating on the atmospheric conditions that make a moment worth capturing. This exercise also helps her to create involved studio pieces of intense luminosity. Her impressions of reality come forth through lively brush work and color on canvases and panels ranging in size from miniature to very large. Her custom murals on walls as well as the paintings cast a delightful glow to the interior spaces that they occupy. Cami finds working on commissions very rewarding. She, to her credit, has many satisfied clients with very diverse needs and requirements. By continuously challenging herself to explore and excel with various subject matter, her art has constantly evolved and has a very broad appeal.

In the 1990s she traveled to Alaska for five consecutive years where she painted over 250 paintings, taught workshops and finalized each trip with a one-woman exhibit. All but a very few of those paintings sold to Alaskans and her work is in the permanent collection of the Baranov Museum on Kodiak Island.

Her paintings are hanging in private and corporate collections throughout the world. Cami has won numerous awards and recognition in her field including: Best of Show, 1997, Artists of Colorado at the Colorado History Museum in Denver; top 100 Arts for the Parks 2004; Top 200 Arts for the Parks 2004; Top 150 Arts for the Parks 2005; Taos Invites Taos show 2006, 07, 08 and 09. However, the best award for Cami is to have her paintings giving light to the lives of others.

Conservation and a love of nature have always sustained Cami on her spiritual path. Being fortunate to have the ability to translate the beauty all around her into art is what she really enjoys doing. Sharing it with others is an added bonus for this artist.

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