Spiritual Landscapes: Art and Spirit of the Southwest

Discover the profound connections between art and nature in this inspiring presentation by artists Donna Larson and Sheila Kollasch. With a deep history exploring Arizona’s deserts and mountains, Larson and Kollasch have created a stunning body of artwork that brings the beauty and spirituality of the Southwest landscape to life. Their works—spanning oil, acrylic, watercolor, graphite, and ink—invite you to experience the land visually and through the sensory and spiritual connection they have cultivated over a lifetime of exploration.

Larson and Kollasch will share how the Southwest landscapes influence their art, their creative processes, and the powerful messages of stewardship, respect, and interdependence that drive their work. Come witness how these artists connect deeply with the land and invite us all to pause, reflect, and embrace the world around us.

Doors open at 6:30pm. The presentation starts at 7:00pm.

*The event is free, but space is limited, and registration is required. For those unable to attend in person, the talk will be live-streamed on our YouTube Channel.

Donna Rae Larson:  Artist Statement 

For over 50 years I have been inspired by the shapes and colors of the Southwest.  The landscapes and mysteries of trails beyond paved roads drew me into the canyons, deserts and rivers.  I am a native in heart to this area. I marvel and wonder at nature’s millenniums of work and admire the pecked and painted glyphs created by the original artists of this landscape and their ancestors.  Exploring the land and archaeology, discovering the large and small marks of the ancients, and getting brief glimpses of the animals, reptiles and birds inspire my pieces. 

From memory, study and imagination I weave together the mysteries I feel.   I work mainly with graphite and ink.  Although I love color and the energy that color infuses into a scene, expressing my marks in monotones of graphite and ink allows the mind’s eye to add spectrums of light into the images I create on paper. 

Sheila Kollasch: Artist Statement

I have lived all of my life in the Sonoran Desert.  As a child I played, digging holes for forts in the shade of bur sage and creosote bushes.  My friends and I cooled ourselves in irrigation ditches that meandered like creeks instead of flowing in the well-engineered straight lines indicated by water company maps.  Our suburban desert creeks were lined with huge cottonwood, ash, mesquite and Palo Verde trees.  The perfumed aroma of desert rain storms and wet creosote bushes bring back my earliest and most precious memories of childhood—memories of a vibrant desert.

My work reveals the intimate relationship I have with this desert landscape.  Outings result in paintings that share with the viewer my joy of broken cliff faces, festooned streambed pebbles, tangled trees and plants striving for a foothold on life in precarious places.

Host or Publisher Natural History Institute