Mapping the Artist: Ron Pettie

Ron Pettie and Kathabela Wilson.

Ron Pettie is an inspiring prolific fine artist. He is the owner of Colonnade Art Gallery on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, where he encourages and presents artists to their local community.

By Kathabela Wilson

A telescope on the artist

Ron Pettie

You are personally a prolific and expressive artist, as well as one who nurtures the art of others, how do you see yourself as an artist in the world, and why is it important?

An artist can save what might disappear, that moment when a subject is at its best. People, trees, and buildings are fleeting, but paintings can endure. I try to capture a landscape scene that may change in the future, like when I painted the sweeping meadow at the Huntington Library now under water as the new Chinese Garden. I try to “keep” people and animals that may change or that are no longer with us. My task as an artist is to reflect the culture of our time and show what I see as important.

Mapping the artist

How does the place where you live influence you, express itself in your art?

I was born in western Washington state, my earliest years were spent among the natural wonders of the northwestern forests. I feel this in my landscape paintings, even when I paint scenes from the southwestern deserts, the backdrop of my long-time home in southern California. Yet here I am drawn to paint other wonders, the expressive old architecture in Pasadena, Old Town Pasadena, the Colorado Theater district, and City Hall.

A compass on the Artist

Shooting Star painting by Ron Pettie – Starry Night #2 (second in a series of many).

What does your Colonnade Art Gallery do, how is it unique, and what does it give to the local artists and the community?

We really are a community of artists. I feel it’s important that artists in our area have a forum to display their work to the local public. We encourage a broad spectrum jewelry, ceramics, sculpture, oil painting, watercolor, acrylics, photography, and art cards.

We encourage both representational and abstract art. ​It allows me to interact with a variety of artists to motivate and encourage their work to be seen. I’m open to new ideas and experiments. At openings twice a month I have the artists present and talk about their new work. We have themed shows that inspire the artists to be innovative and at the same time create a community that has a common, shifting focus. The various activities–artist safaris and artist talks motivate and inspire the artists. We’ve invited Poets on Site to view and write poems on the artwork and read at our openings. We have a low membership fee and a modest hanging fee that helps pay the rent. All sales proceeds of the artwork goes back to the artist. This also allows me to show some of my current work as well. All sales of my work go to the Gallery.

A microscope on the Artist

Shooting Star painting by Ron Pettie – Starry Night #2 (second in a series of many).

You see the artist as preserving the beauty of the world, keeping it from disappearing, what led you to this, and to creating a community of artists?

Speaking of disappearance… I fell in love with art as a child, but my early art was ​lost when all of my possessions were burnt by medical authorities as an overzealous precaution when I contracted polio at the age of twelve. As a teen and adult, I continued to experiment with watercolor, acrylics and oils. After a career as a school psychologist I returned to my first love, studied with the distinguished plein aire artist Margot Lennartz and also at the Chouinard School of Art and at the Otis College of Art and Design. That was the winding road I took to our wonderful Colonnade Art Gallery, a community of Artists on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena.

________________________________________________________