Jeffie Mackey

Medium: acrylics and mixed media

pejeffie@verizon.net

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Jeffie Mackey’s earliest memory of her art journey includes coloring all of the animals in her color book bright and crazy colors.  She grew up loving to create things: hooking neon-colored rugs, macramé, beading, quilting, embroidery, cross-stitch, and photography. Later in her life, she followed in her maternal grandmother’s footsteps and became passionate about painting.

 

Jeffie started her painting journey by taking a few watercolor classes with friends and a few art classes at Great Basin College in Elko, NV.  After discovering the forgiving nature of acrylic paint, she quickly fell in love with that medium.  She is crazy about bright, beautiful colors, and fun, funky, and quirky shapes.  A few of her favorite post-impressionistic artists are Henri Matisse and Vincent Van Gogh (who also utilize bold creative shapes and color).  Two of her favorite contemporary and inspirational artists (with whom she has also taken classes) include Annie O’Brien Gonzales and Amanda Evanston.  Annie O’Brien Gonzales is a very talented, fun, and generous artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Her paintings are bold, expressive, and full of fun shapes and rich color (her book Bold Expressive Painting is wonderful).  Amanda Evanston is an artist from Evanston, Illinois. Her fun use of line, color, and whimsical shapes are a party on a canvas (amandaevanston.com).

 

After her retirement from teaching Junior High Physical Education in Southern California, she and her husband moved to Las Cruces, NM.  It is here that she found inspiration and fell in love with this enchanting city’s beautiful and lively colors of the sunrises, sunsets, clouds, mountains, and desert.