Windom resident among artists to be featured at Worthington show

• Floyd

Marget Floyd displays two of the three paintings she brought for entry in the Nobles County Area Art Show.

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WORTHINGTON — On an afternoon earlier this week, Marget Floyd made the 30-mile trek from Windom to Worthington with three paintings in tow. The watercolors are her entries in the Nobles County Art Center’s Area Art Show.

“This is the first juried show I’ve done in years,” said Floyd, who admitted she hadn’t entered the annual Worthington exhibit in recent times. “I had a solo show at the Remick Gallery (in Windom) last summer, and that got me going again.”

Although her formal training is limited to a couple semesters at an eastern art school, Floyd has spent a lifetime honing her artistic skills.

“My mother’s an artist. That’s where I got started. I tell people I started drawing on church bulletins when I was 5,” explained Floyd, whose father was a Presbyterian pastor. “My mother was an illustrator — wrote and illustrated children’s books. She does more people, portraits; I’m more into wildlife, nature, still lifes. My sister is a photographer, and I have a niece who is an artist and another who is a photographer, so I guess art runs in the family.”

Born and raised in Maryland, Floyd and her husband moved to Windom 32 years ago.

“My dad was the pastor at a Presbyterian church in Mankato, and we came to visit and fell in love with Minnesota,” she explained. “I love the lack of traffic, and here I feel like I could walk out into the woods and feel reasonably safe. Windom is a great town. I love Windom.”

As a homemaker who paints and writes in her spare time, Floyd has also found a supportive artistic community in southwest Minnesota and plenty of inspiration for her artistic endeavors. She works not only in watercolor, but also utilizes oil and gouache — an opaque watercolor medium.

Two of the paintings Floyd submitted to the Worthington show are still lifes; the third has trees as its dominant subject matter.

“I like doing paintings of nature — especially woods, trees, that kind of thing. I like to do scenes with water,” she explained. “The still lifes I usually just put together with stuff I have at home.”

While she prefers to work from real life or in the open air — a technique known as “en plein air” — circumstances and weather don’t always cooperate, so Floyd works from photographs when necessary.

“The irises (in the still life paintings) come from my garden, but they don’t last very long so I had to photograph them,” she said.

All three of Floyd’s paintings are very detailed for watercolor, a trend she’s noticed lately in all her work.

“It varies on the subject and varies with the medium,” she said about her style and how long it takes to complete a painting. “A watercolor can be done within a few hours if I’m being impressionistic with it. I’ve been in a detailed mood for the last year or so, ever since I was part of a Windom community art project, ‘Mi casa es su casa,’ and the very detailed painting I did for that.”

Floyd’s three contributions joined a growing array of artwork that will be featured during the month-long exhibit at the Nobles County Art Center. The juried show features only original artwork in a variety of mediums and is open to artists who live in the tri-state region. Cash awards are presented in several categories.

The opening reception for the exhibit will be from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday in the art center gallery, located in the lower level of the War Memorial Building (Nobles County Library), 407 12th St., Worthington. The juror’s critique will be at 3 p.m.

The Area Art Show will hang until April 29. The Nobles County Art Center is open from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, phone 372-8245.

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