Local artist featured in new Dogwood gallery

For Cassopolis artist Christine Parkhurst, the opening of her second art show in Dowagiac is a cause for celebration in and of itself.

The fact that she lost nearly every piece of artwork last spring has only added to her jubilation.

Last May, the home that Parkhurst and her husband, Jack, share was engulfed in flames. Though she and her husband made it out of the house to safety, the artist feared that her collection of more than 100 oil paintings would be lost to the inferno.

“All I could think about was my paintings, that my life work was burning up,” Parkhurst recalled.

However, the firefighters responding to the call quickly sprung into action, safely recovering all but two of the art pieces. After receiving some restoration work, the paintings appear good as new.

“It’s kind of a miracle that I’m able to show them today,” she remarked.

The winner of the 2014 Up Front Art Walk, held during the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival in May, Parkhurst received the opportunity to showcase her unique oil paintings inside the festival’s office inside downtown’s Huntington Bank Building. Dogwood hosted the grand opening of the exhibit on Thursday night, where Parkhurst greeted a number of locals interested in seeing her eclectic art style first hand, including Mayor Don Lyons.

The native of Fort Knox, Kentucky, has been painting for more than 30 years, she said. Her initial inspiration for picking up the brush and easel was found not in a gallery, but on her bookshelf.

“My mother had lots of books on Renaissance-era artists,” Parkhurst said. “Instead of TV, I poured over those.”

One of her family friends, Linda Jarrell, helped the aspiring artist get started, and her landscape oil paintings served as another early inspiration. Throughout the course of her painting career, Parkhurst discovered a number of old-world artists that would influence her work, including Sandro Botticelli and Hieronymus Bosch.

Most of Parkhurst’s creations focus on surreal and fantastical subjects such as dragons or fairies, earning her the nickname of the “Story Book Painter.” Recently, she’s expanded into a more contemporary style, with her “Portals” series of paintings focusing on simple botanical scenes.

Despite her years of work, painting is merely Parkhurst’s night job. Earning a degree in English from Indiana University, the Cassopolis resident is the founder and publisher of “The Edwardsburg Voice,” a monthly community news magazine.

“Visual art is my therapy at the end of the day, after dealing with deadlines,” Parkhurst said. “I can escape into another world, and I can share that world with everyone else.”

While her work has been on display in galleries in Muskegon and Goshen, Dowagiac’s old Rose Gallery was her first exclusive exhibition, which she held alongside wood sculptor Ted Wegner.

“I love Dowagiac,” she said. “It’s a friendly little town. With all the shops and restaurants, there’s always something to do here. It’s the kind of place you love to visit and stay while at.”

The art gallery will be open until Dec. 9.