Aspiring Artist

Chloe Anderson is striving to focus on experimenting with painting after high school by studying fine arts at the University of Montana next fall. An artist with a love for experimenting with different mediums, Anderson has poured her creative energy into both the classroom and in the local art community.

Anderson has actively participated in non-juried art shows at the Sandpiper Art Gallery on Polson’s main street for several years. This year, the theme of the show was “Air, Water, Earth, Fire,” and Anderson’s submission, a painting of a peaceful woman with an ocean landscape, features on this page. Though she ran into challenges with painting the clouds, Anderson embraced the process and the final result ended up being one of her favorite canvases that she’s finished. Whether it’s large-scale canvases or smaller, intimate pieces, Anderson is driven in creating pieces with positive and blissful elements. “I like to bring happy people and happy things to my canvases,” she shared, capturing her personal style.

For Anderson, the artistic process isn’t just about creating finished pieces; it’s about exploration and self-expression. “I like to experiment with anything I can get my hands on,” she says, though she tends to gravitate toward acrylic paints. From her room, Anderson utilizes her space as a personal studio, where she paints on an easel and uses a self-built shelf to organize her materials. She’s taken every art class at Polson High School, even repeating three of them this year to exercise her creativity during school hours.

In addition to her art classes, Anderson has been working on a senior project that requires a bit of craftsmanship. She has been carving custom designs into rubber material and printing them on shirts and clothes using ink stamps. These intricate stamps picture birds and butterflies in topographic patterns, and Anderson takes her time to make sure each piece is just right, with drying times of about a week and a half.