Art is more than a job for Lorna Libert

Art group meets each Wednesday to paint and to enjoy each others’s company

By Bill Helm Editor

WHATCOM — Acryl- ics, oils, water colors. Canvas, wood board, recycled surfaces. At Lorna Libert’s home studio located in a woodsy area between Lynden and Bellingham, it doesn’t matter so much what artists work on, or work with. Because this group of ladies is there each Wednesday afternoon to paint — and to enjoy each other’s company.

Libert started painting with her artist friends on Wednesday afternoons back in 1999. At the time, they all met at Libert’s downtown studio.

“I was approached by a few wonderful ladies who had taken some of my previous classes and workshops,” Libert recalled. “ ey wanted to continue to paint with me. Over time, the group got bigger and the parking got more di cult, so I decided to invite them to my home. We’ve become a good group of friends who basically get together for three hours each week.”

In 1989, Libert earned her BFA, in 1990 an art education degree, and in 1997 an MFA. Looking back, Libert said she’s made art her entire life. However, she taught in New York’s public school system for two years before she realized the life of an artist, for her, meant a full commitment, the one in which a day job is more of a hurdle than a help.

“Teaching is more than a full-time job and I required time to create my own work,” Libert said. “So, risky as it seemed, I left teaching, my steady salary, bene ts, retirement, and all that good stu .”

Since then, Libert has made a living as an artist, and in years past taught art at Whatcom Community College. Nowadays, Libert teaches art classes and workshops. “I walk from easel to easel o ering suggestions, answering questions, doing little demonstrations and encouraging each artist to discover her strengths in painting,” Libert said, “Currently, we have a group of all women. We have had a few (brave) men join in from time to time and that’s been wonderful. Because it takes place in my home, it’s not an open invitation to the public. It’s a very special thing and I must say that I truly look forward to Wednesdays.”

‘Loving this beautiful pastime’

Now 91 years old, Anne Gibert started drawing and painting when she was a child.

“Part of my childhood I lived with my aunt who was a painter and I grew up painting with her,” Gibert said. An art student in college, Gibert said she switched degrees to biology. After a career working jobs she didn’t particularly love, Gibert returned to art school at age 50, majored in printmaking.

“Going to art school was the best fun of my life,” Gibert said. “I still have a couple of printing presses in my studio, but I don’t use them much. Painting requires a lot less e ort than making prints. But I have been doing some painting since I was in art school.

A resident of Lummi Island, Gibert rst started painting with Libert more than 10 years ago at Whatcom Community College (WCC).

“After that class I started painting at her house,” Gibert said. “I loved her as a teacher. She is always positive and encouraging and emphasizes her student’s best qualities in her critiques. She makes suggestions but doesn’t give orders. I love her work and admire her devotion to art. She paints all the time, even on airplanes or when she and her husband Jimmy are sailing. And she is kind, loving, cheerful and pretty. What more could you ask for in a teacher?

At a recent get-together of the artists group, Gibert was one of about 10 artists, Libert included, who were painting. Gibert was painting a picture of three goats that belong to one of her neighbors. Set in a landscape, horizontally, the 20inch by 20-inch canvas was not very large, she said, but it had “a lot of detail in it.”

“I wish I were painting