(Left) Crooked River (Right) The View from Post Meadows by Pamela Beaverson)
Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, a five-hour drive from Bend, offers magnificent vistas of rugged terrain and a chance to glimpse its graceful pronghorn antelopes. Encompassing more than 420 square miles of desert steppe and low craggy mountains, it was established by Teddy Roosevelt in 1936 to protect the dwindling numbers of pronghorns and today harbors many other fragile species, including bighorn sheep and sage grouse.
For artist Pamela Beaverson, Hart Mountain is her favorite place, where she can draw inspiration for her painting from the wind-whipped vegetation and the vast sky. Beaverson spent many weekends camping and hiking the area, enjoying its solitude. “I love it there for the subtlety of colors and the open sky,” she says, “and of course the wildlife — especially the pronghorn.”
It was those visits to Hart Mountain that persuaded her to move to Central Oregon from the rainy west side of the Cascades, settling in Bend in 2018. She recently joined Red Chair Gallery and her art is now on display there.
Beaverson’s work was always influenced by the outdoors. Growing up in Indiana, she spent her early years exploring the wetlands and forests of the Midwest. Her first nature illustrations were of leaves and she created a book of tree identification.
She attended Ohio State University, where she attained a BFA with a concentration in printmaking and a minor in biology. She then studied stone lithography and biological illustration before going on to complete an MS in science communication, illustration track, from the University of California at Santa Cruz. She worked as a biological illustrator and exhibit designer in Tallahassee before moving to Salem to continue her career. On the side, she created her own works in woodblock and linocut prints and oil paintings. She also began entering juried art shows across the Northwest.
As she developed her style and color palette, she was influenced by other artists, especially Carl Rungius (1869-1959), a German painter who settled in Wyoming and became famous for his mountain scenery and portrayals of big game animals. Other influencers were The Group of Seven, a circle of Canadian landscape artists in the 1920s, and Kevin McPherson, a still living artist known as an “impressionistic artist in plein air.”
Since she settled here, Beaverson has become well-known in our arts community. She has contributed works to the High Desert Museum’s Art in the West juried show since 2023 (and will be participating again this year). She is a member of the Board of Directors of Plein Air Painters of Oregon and was preparing for a group “paint out” at a scenic location when we spoke for this article. She also belongs to the High Desert Art League. Her fine art has appeared in galleries in Florida, California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho and even in the Smithsonian Institution.