The Daily News

As the long summer days come to an end and winter's chilly, short hours set in, a local painter is pulling out her brushes to unearth new visions.

North Dakota native Rita Gorneau-Erdrich prefers the luminescence of the skylight and winter's snowfall as it shines through her home's windows.

Erdrich calls herself a "dabbler," an artist who has painted with watercolors, oil and acrylic based paints and pastels. Often, she'll even trade in her paintbrush for a pencil.

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"I didn't have any classes until I was about 14," Erdrich said. "I went to a boarding school and that was the first time I had an actual art teacher."

Erdrich's interest in art peaked prior to her education in Marty, S.D., at home with her brothers and sisters. As young children, the Gorneaus would gather around the radio and listen to programs such as “The Lone Ranger” and “The Shadow.” Each of them would fill their "Big Chief" tablets, Erdrich said, calling much of her drawings at that time "fantasy art."

"Some of us saved them. Mine, when I looked through it, I saw I was doing cartoons, so I must have enjoyed the cartoons in the papers," Erdrich said. "'Funny papers' as we called them."

The art of painting continued to intrigue Erdrich in Catholic boarding school, an institution in Marty established by priests, specifically for Native American students. Erdrich joined a Saturday art class, which is where she first tried painting with watercolors, with seven other students. The instructor gave the students incentive, too, insisting they paint seven pieces each, to be given to the institution's benefactors, and the eighth would be theirs to take home.

Last summer, in a surprising twist of fate, one of Erdrich's daughters heard someone in Belcourt, N.D., Erdrich's hometown in the Turtle Mountains, had in their possession one of the watercolor paintings she completed 59 years ago. Bennett Brien, a friend and fellow Metis artist, had bought the piece at a rummage sale, Erdrich said, recognizing the Gorneau family name scripted on the front of the painting. She retrieved her work, as well as a piece painted by her brother, Kenneth, from Brien just weeks later and now they hang in her family's dining area, matted in gold frames.

"All those years I would wonder 'What has happened to my paintings,'" Erdrich said. "I'm pretty sure they must have been framed [before], there was really nothing wrong with them."

As years passed and Erdrich's education fell behind her, much of her work began to represent the faces of those who've inspired her the most — her family. Erdrich's grandparents, siblings, children and parents are the subjects of many of Erdrich's paintings, which either hang in her home, are stored away or have been gifted to friends and family.

"It's always portraits with me. I started out drawing faces, that's my favorite," Erdrich said.

Upon entering the Erdrich home, one will notice a mixed media piece — a painting she completed using watercolors and extensive bead work — inspired by a 1912 black and white photograph of her grandmother and an aunt.

Erdrich was afraid to paint with watercolors at first. Her youngest daughter, Angie, an art student at the time, encouraged her to begin using them again. With her mixed media piece, Erdrich said it was only a short time before she made a mistake.

"I had to cut it up and save the best parts, put pieces together, that's how that turned out," Erdrich said.

Fixing a mistake with watercolor paints is almost impossible, she added, as the portrait can get "muddier" if the artist continues to try to correct the error.

"The only thing you can do, maybe, is keep watering out the paint in certain places. It's very difficult, you have to go slowly," Erdrich said. "If you want to put a little bloom in the cheek then you take a very fine little bit of ink paint and it'll spread out into the cheek if your paper is still a little wet."

Although watercolors are a challenge for Erdrich, portraits in which she chooses to include wrinkles on her subject are the most difficult. She's spent uncountable hours creating realistic looking wrinkles on the faces of older Native American men or on the hands of a comforting midwife.

One piece Erdrich titled 'Another Gorneau baby,’ may have taken the most time, she said. The painting shows the hand of a midwife, named Shyush, who helped birth many of the Gorneau family's children, holding up an infant. Behind the main subjects of the piece, Erdrich painted a piece of her grandmother's bead work.

"I worked and worked on those, it just took so much time," Erdrich said. "I had a photo of the hand that I looked at and tried to follow closely the wrinkles in that particular hand."

Many of her other pieces were inspired by photographs of family or old photographs she came across that were unique to paint. After Erdrich became interested in genealogy, she obtained numerous black and white photographs of grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.

"I work to create a better likeness," Erdrich said.

One painting, which hangs in her home's main sitting area, depicts a photograph of her paternal grandparents, Joseph and Eliza Gorneau, who often wore traditional Ojibway clothing. Instead of painting the piece using black and white acrylics, Erdrich chose to use color, illustrating the rich earth tones of her grandfather's headdress, jewelry and her grandmother's shawl.

Currently, Erdrich's imagination is running freely with a memory of her grandfather's den and a family portrait that donned the wall. Although the photograph has inspired her, Erdrich hasn't yet put her ideas to a canvas.

As October comes to a close, though, and November begins, winter's kickoff is sure to inspire Erdrich even further.

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