DANA FEAGIN, Animal Portrait Artist with a heart of gold for our furry friends.

After you read this post, you are going to wonder where the ‘horse’ is in it… Well, I swear to you that the artist, Dana Feagin, had a horse portrait in the gallery…

In fact, it was that same horse portrait that got me to visit Sanctuary One (where I took a photo of the actual horse in the painting). But, in my excitement, I didn’t take a photo of the horse painting.

What is really interesting is that I have spent the last 45 mins searching high and low on every site, FB page and artist community trying to find that horse painting by Dana Feagin… I guess she doesn’t like it much – or it was an Original and even she forgot to take a photo of it – because it is NO WHERE.

So, you will just have to take my word for it… she does horses, too. <smile>

These are two of the cards that I purchased from the Gallery in Ashland. The artist is Dana Feagin. I like that she actually applies the prints to the paper via those old style photo corners... Nice!

HOW IT ALL STARTED

Well, we were on a family vacation a few weeks ago. The entire family decided to walk 11 abreast through the streets of Ashland, Oregon. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post…

Anyway, my idea of a gracious way to unglop ourselves from the unruly mass we had become was to enter a multi-level, narrow and difficult to navigate art gallery. Since I love artist cooperative galleries anyway (where the artists rent a space and show their stuff), I jumped at the opportunity to browse independent of the entourage.

OMG! There was so much interesting and wonderful work, I wanted to spend all my hay money! I even found a quilt I liked and I’m not that much into quilts…

Since I was being fiscally responsible in front of my husband’s family, I decided to only purchase the above cards which I found in this tiny corner of the Gallery.

Cheapo me buys the cards instead of originals or prints.

THE ARTIST

I didn’t know anything about the artist but her name was on the back of each card so I looked her up once I returned to our home away from home.

Evidently, Dana Feagin had a corporate job in San Diego until 2006 when she and her husband flew the coop and migrated to Southern Oregon.

Since then, she has been painting portraits of animal on commission or just for fun.

Cool, eh?

The artist and her dog.

I think she really captures the personality of her subjects…

Here is her website if you’d like to learn more or ask about a commission.

I also found her Facebook page while I was searching for that horse portrait. (If you contact her, ask her where in the heck she stores that horse painting?!)

Her portrait of her own dog...

This made me smile.

Great Expression!

BROCHURE

Anyway, while I was in her booth of animal portraits, I picked up a brochure for Sanctuary One. (It had a photo of the horse on it that Dana had painted.)

I figured there had to be a connection but I didn’t know what. I mean, of course the Sanctuary rescues animals and she paints animals, but I didn’t get the relationship until I actually went to the Sanctuary…

SANCTUARY ONE

Hubby and the Kids and I had time to kill on our way home from Oregon. No one knew how to fill the time so I pulled out the little brochure for Sanctuary One that I had gathered from Dana’s Gallery booth and piped up, “Let’s go here!”

So we did.

I’m going to write an entire blog about Sanctuary One because it is a wonderful model of how humans and animals can live harmoniously and leave a very small footprint on the planet. They also run a brilliant programs where injured humans can mingle with the injured animals and all heal together. Nice.

But getting back to the story…

We drove there.

This is the horse who greeted us as we arrived. He is also the horse she painted in the mystery painting that I never saw again. Anyway, he is near 40 years-old and a rescue. Handsome older gent. Looks good.

THE PIG, GOAT, COW AND DUCK

I was not the sharpest tool in the box on that day.

You see, I walked into the Sanctuary One office and saw original animal portraits by Dana Feagin on their walls. Hmmmm. You’d think I would have picked up the clue. But, I didn’t.

It wasn’t until we were halfway through the tour did I realize that the very pig, goat, cow and duck (among others) that I had just met were the same pig and goat and cow and duck from the gallery images.

Duh.

Finally, the lightbulb clicked on.

This is the porcine from the painting! She was a fabulous, huge, friendly girl who came out to greet us. I loved her!

This is the portrait of the duck we met!

The famous duck is the one on the right. He didn't stop to meet us. He just walked past with his ladies.

This same cow was keeping her distance about 100 feet from the white cow I was petting.

Here I am with a very sweet rescued "education" cow who worked at a vet school for a while (her breed is evidently rare and French...). Her friend (the black and white cow featured in many of Dana's paintings), is her best friend but she wouldn't come near me. She is far away in the pasture but I can see her...

GOOD CAUSE

Not only does Dana Feagin do commission work, she also paints the animals of the Sanctuary to garner donations for them. And, on top of that, she volunteers there as well. Yup, she rolls up her sleeves and gets animal dirty.

No wonder there were original paintings on the wall of the Sanctuary…

Sheesh. Sometimes I’m as dull as dirt.

Dana's work on a gallery wall

STEP BY STEP

I thought this was a fun depiction of how one of her paintings was created. I found this on her Facebook page.

Photograph

Step 1

Step 2

Final

HUBBY AND THE GOAT

Hubby loves goats. He would like a goat but he doesn’t really want any more animals so he always says he wants a goat and then when I threaten to rescue one, he makes me promise that I won’t bring one home.

Still, when I see goat and boy bonding like this… well, I think about selective forgetfulness, for sure. If our vacationmobile wasn’t packed to the gills, I might have thrown this little goat in the backseat with our daughters… Wally World here we come!!

(Thanks for strolling through this vacation adventure with me!)