Belfast, Maine
207-338-3856
About the Artist, Debbie Flood
Life for this artist started in the summer of 1962, in Belfast, Maine, making a grand entrance on the opening day of her grandmother’s Grocery Store. Spending her time growing up on an Appaloosa Horse Farm in Morrill, Maine, she had many connections to different animals.
Many family members were artists and also owned horses, where Debbie grew up, she was surrounded by Art, Antiques and horses.
So shy, the only way she could communicate her feelings and thoughts, was through drawing and painting. What she drew was her surroundings and connections to wildlife, and horses. She had access to art and antique magazines as well as horse publications. She rode mostly trail and dreamed about the Wild West movies that played out on her TV, while she rode her pony. Those early years were the first stepping stones that were laid out for her journey as an animal artist.
As time moved through space, Debbie moved in and out of art and painting horses. After losing the last of the family of horses that she loved, in the early 1980’s, she stopped painting them and moved more towards Landscapes and wildlife. She focused on workshops and an Oil painting School with the Kachina School of Art, Arizona. Though many of these works sold, Debbie was still searching to find herself through art. In 1991 Debbie married and continued to create Equine and Canine Portraits in Oils, Watercolor and Graphite for collectors. Debbie also started a family in the mid and late 1990’s. She gave birth, at that time, to two sons. In 2003 Debbie reconnected with horse art and found a large group of Equine Artists that shared the same love and connection. Her journey was to come back, full circle, reconnected with the spirit of the horse again.
During 1998 Debbie left a part time, non-art related job and opened her studio up full time, as she raised her boys. Commission portraits of people, pets, and horses came streaming in. With each year that passed, more opportunities to paint horses opened up. She was invited by a local horse show club to set up her booth at the shows. It was there that she created portraits of the children with their horses. This led to a summer job on a horse riding instruction farm, teaching art to the youngsters and creating tribute paintings for the stall doors of the lesson horses.
Watching those kids with the horses, Debbie knew how those kids felt about their mounts. She knows the connection, and that horse crazy madness that takes over. More and more of her paintings included children with horses and the collectors really loved these new works. From that journey, spawned a book of Debbie’s watercolors of children and horses, where she also wrote poetry to accompany the images.
It was that book that inspired Authors and Illustrators of Children’s books to contact her and encourage her to go into the children’s book illustrating genre. This prodding from peers forced her to work on honing her own skills at painting children, so she started a project titled “Painting a child a day”. This project has come around to painting children almost exclusively with horses.
“It is a release of my own connection to horses; it is a reconnection to my childhood. Almost all of my paintings today that include horses have a human element in it. It now doesn’t matter if it is an adult or a child communicating with the horse. I’m still able to translate the story.
And with so much being built upon my past, it is the past that is foremost in my creative mind and the past that comes through in other works of art, such as the Series, ‘Belfast’s past’. It is a historical look at my City through the eyes of my ancestors.”
Studies:
Landscape & Portraiture in Oils with the Kachina School of Art, Arizona
Painting and Drawing, with Anne Rowe, at the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
Watercolor workshops with Carol Sebold, at the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
Watercolor workshop with Maude Olson, at the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine
Memberships:
National Association of Women Artists, NY, NY. Full Member
Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators.
American Watercolor Society, Associate Member
National Watercolor Society, Associate Member
Equine Art Guild, Senior Member
Belfast Historical Society, Belfast, Maine
Galleries:
Duck-Trap Woodworking Gallery, Lincolnville, Maine
Exhibtis:
Art at the Classic, Draft Horse Classic, Grass Valley, California
American Academy of Equine Art, AAEA Fall Juried open Exhibit 2008
"Spring into Summer" National Association of Women Artist, Manhatten NY Gallery.
Invitational Grand National Rodeo and Western Art Exhibit, Cow Palace, California.
Wild Mustang and Burro Western Art Exhibit, RockSprings, Wyoming.
New Jersey Equine Art Association, Equine Art Exhibit, New Jersey.
City Art Project Gallery, Ohio, 'Spirit of the Horse Exhibit'.
Dancing Horse Farm, Equine Art Exhibit, Lebanon, Ohio.
Carriage Factory Art Gallery, Small and miniature Art Exhibit, Newton, Kansas.
Awards:
"A feathered friend" Oil on Canvas. Best in show, Dancing horse farm, Ohio. Honorable Mention at the Draft Horse Classic, Art at the Classic, CA. Also accepted into the American Academy of Equine Art, 2008.
"Zebra's new day" Oil on Canvas. First place Intown Arts Festival, Waterville, Maine 2009
"Slinging mud" Watercolor. Honorable Mention at the Draft Horse Classic, Art at the Classic, CA.
Many wildlife works and Seascape works, in watercolor, have taken People's Choice, First Place through Honorable mentions as well as Best in shows at the Maine Coast Compittion, Belfast, Maine in the years ranging from 1999 through 2008.
"Song and dance" watercolor. Third place at the Augusta Sportsman Show, Augusta, Maine
"Buddies" Watercolor. Honorable Mention at the Augusta Sportsman Show, Augusta, Maine
Publications:
"Buddies" and "Song and dance" published in the book "Great Dogs, Amazing Artists" 2009 Written by Jan E. Irving. Erinrac Publications.
"Snack time", on the cover of "The horse's Maine" May 2008
Collectors own Debbie Flood Originals through out the United States and Internationally, including Canada, Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Australia.