Imagine you are walking in the woods on a snowy day. The absolute quiet is intoxicating! The colors of snow, the shadows, and reflections; the sights, sounds, smells fill the air; and always, the light. Add an easel, some paints, an artist willing to embrace the possibilities of nature and you are ready for the adventure of “plein-air” painting. Carol is an artist who is inspired by this challenge. “Anyone who has ever walked through a forest, especially in winter, has felt its dignity and monumentality. Painting is my way of preserving that experience and sharing it with others.”

Carol was born in Chicago and spent much of her youth perusing the Art Institute of Chicago, later attending the AI school. She received her B.F.A. in Industrial Design from the University of Illinois, Urbana. As the first female furniture designer for a large Chicago manufacturer, Grigus continued her fine art studies at the American Academy of Art. With a move to Nevada in 1977, she established a career in graphic design. In 1997 Carol was “smitten” by Wolf Kahn’s paintings at the Nevada Museum of Art. “His paintings were exploding with color. I had to see what this oil medium could do for me.” Soon after that she took a painting workshop at PAPA: the Plein-air Painters of America, studying with artists George Strickland, Jean LeGassick and Kevin MacPherson. “So many artists have inspired me along the way: Richard Schmid and Len Chmiel, among others. “Their encouraging words gave me the tenacity to keep painting.” Grigus later organized PAPON: the Plein-Air Painters of Nevada, a regional group of artists who painted outdoors together for more than five years, with three ‘plein-air’ gallery shows. She is represented by Art Attack gallery, Incline Village, NV and the former River Gallery of Reno. She is also involved with several Nevada conservation fundraisers each year. “I need to give back something to Nature. I’m a transcendentalist painter but with a modern concern: preservation. It’s my poetry and my ‘true north’.” Carol continues to paint, hike and travel the wild and not so Wildplaces of the world. “All things of the universe are miracles, each as profound as any.” Walt Whitman