Corvallis Artist hones her craft amid pandemic

First published in the Ravilli Republic.

Artists are still at work during this time of self-distancing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Artist Norma Lee Pfaff, who paints in her studio in Corvallis, has a focus on wildlife and people and is as busy as ever.

“Yes, you never stop painting,” Pfaff said Wednesday.

She was born and raised in Hamilton and her first blue ribbon was for a finger painting she did in the first grade.

“When I was in high school, maybe in 10th grade, I painted a cabin in the mountains and my instructor said, ‘Oh, no, this has to be an abstract,’ and started painting on my picture,” Pfaff said. “That was the last thing I’d done.”

After high school, she focused on being a country singer.

“I gave that up when my kids started school and got a real job,” Pfaff said. She owned a tax practice in Hamilton for 38 years, then retired.

“I’ve always enjoyed the arts and I’ve always been artistic but didn’t have the chance to do anything until I sold my practice,” she said.

In 2006 she and her husband moved to Idaho where she took an oil painting workshop. Before that, she found painting with oil paints to be frustrating.

“I couldn’t make it work for me, there were techniques I didn’t know,” she said. “In 2012, I decided I was going to get serious about my art and stepped it up. I knew I needed to treat it like a job and went to my studio every day at eight o’clock in the morning and painted until five.”

Painting is the way to perfect your work, Pfaff said.

“You can read about it but until you get your fingers in it you’re not going to grow,” she said. “I have to really schedule my time but I do enjoy it. My preferred medium is oil, for the richness and depth I get from it and for how it retains its brilliance.”

The couple moved back to the Bitterroot Valley in 2018, spent time helping family members and is just now getting “back in the zone” of painting.

Pfaff’s favorite subjects to paint are wildlife and people and as she paints, she works to tell the story within each subject.

“There is a character in people that I like to capture,” Pfaff said. “I like the rugged, western faces with stories in them. I’m trying to capture the story of my subject and not just paint a picture.”

She looks at the face of everyone she sees and often asks to take their picture. She prefers to paint from her own photographs that she has taken in the field and carries model releases for people to sign.

“My inspiration usually begins as a fleeting moment when I’ve made an emotional connection with my subject,” Pfaff said. “I really strive to bring out the soul and spirit of the animal, bird or person, whatever I’m painting. I really try to connect the viewer with that subject.”

She recently went to a western photo shoot in Kansas.

“It had cowboys, Indians and wagons,” Pfaff said. “It was all staged for artists and I took over 10,000 photos at that shoot. It was three days of running around a ranch and was exciting and fun. I’m just now picking out some paintings from that shoot. I have so many projects in my head and not enough hours in a day to get them out.”

She’s currently learning a new technique of oil painting and is doing a series on buffalo.

Pfaff teaches beginning oil painting. She is the treasurer of the Bitter Root Arts Guild and Artists Along the Bitterroot.

“We’re kicking off a new program in Bitter Root Arts Guild for arts education,” she said. “It is my passion to get more people involved in the art and are working to have a variety of arts education programs open to the public so people can come in and try.”

She said when people tell her they can’t draw she says, “Well, you can, you just haven’t tried yet.”

“Once you know the proper procedures you can do it,” Pfaff said. “I encourage people that would like to do art. I think they cheat themselves before they even get started.”

Pfaff believes that art and music are unspoken languages that she is passionate about.

“Each brushstroke, each musical note, when put together, creates a story,” she said. “The way I tell the story through my works of art represents the way I view life around me. In this fast-paced world, my hope is to slow things down for a bit, causing the viewer to take pause, if only for a moment and enjoy the visual interpretation I’ve presented in front of them.” Pfaff said her day is not complete if she hasn’t painted.

“Each new piece I create leads me to the next,” she said. “I am so blessed to be an artist and I thank God for my talents. As an artist, the world is a much more interesting place with beauty everywhere.”

To see more of her paintings and learn about her work visit her website: www.normaleepfaff.com.