About the Artist
Lou Ann Bower
Lou Ann has over forty years of experience designing and painting in oil and watercolor. She was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and has lived in Chicago, Boston, Houston and Washington, D.C. She has lived in Dallas for many years and has lived a full life connected with her art interests as well as being a wife, mother, and grandmother.
Recently retired, Lou Ann now spends more time painting in her studio with updated work this last year. She is a representational painter favoring subjects from the West but also enjoys painting commissioned portraits of people and animals. Her painting is influenced by stellar painters, Richard Schmid, Clyde Aspevig, Kathryn Stats and Matt Smith among others.
Lou Ann is also currently teaching oil and watercolor in the Dallas area. She is a member of the Oil Painters of America and the Southwestern Watercolor Society.
Early Career
After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Oklahoma, Lou Ann worked for Leo Burnett Advertising Inc., in Chicago, Illinois for two years prior to focusing on marriage and family.
When she resumed her design career, Lou Ann took painting classes in oil and watercolor and then started her own fabric design business, The Sierra Collection. She created original designs for her company’s products which included heavy canvas travel bags, clothing, and home furnishing materials. She gained experience in business, manufacturing, and marketing during the thirteen years that products were sold through the Apparel Mart in Dallas. She designed all product ads for her company, which appeared in Vanity Fair, Texas Monthly, Sundance catalog, and other national catalogs, as well as company promotional brochures.
She actively enjoyed her family through these years while pursuing her art interests through numerous trips to Santa Fe, Colorado and the West where she taught summer painting workshops.
Artist
After retiring from her business, Lou Ann wanted to return to her first love, painting. During this time Lou Ann painted commissions for client portraits and landscapes in oil and watercolor. Clients included several prominent members of the Ford administration, private collectors and businesses, as well as a mural painting for the Highland Park Presbyterian church in Dallas, Texas.
During this time, Lou Ann filled a leadership role in the Dallas arts including Director of Development for the Frank Lloyd Wright Theater Center under director Paul Baker and Board Member of the
Dallas Symphony Association.
She has shown her work in galleries in Taos, Santa Fe, and Fredericksburg, TX, as well as Dallas venues, including The Banks Gallery and Artists’ Showplace. She has also exhibited in personal invitational shows in the Dallas area.
Teacher
Teaching painting has been part of Lou Ann's journey and joy for over twenty-five years. She has held painting workshops in New Mexico and Colorado in the summers. She loves to see her students develop their creative skills and gain the confidence that brings about successful and satisfying results in their work. Her classes are casual with demonstrations, painting techniques, critiques, and much two-way dialogue between students and teacher. She likes to keep her classes small, between eight and ten, to give personal attention to each student.
