Jeff Anton Ellingson

What is it that drives us to do what we do? For me it was growing up in Southwest Colorado! I have been fascinated with this area since I was a little boy.

I have always liked to draw, it was a projection of what I was feeling. At first I was not very good at “expressing myself”. Drawing and later painting is like learning a whole new way of communicating. Learning to express my feelings in this manner has taken a lifetime.

The towns of Telluride, Ouray, Silverton, and Durango are as authentic as you can get to the real “American West”! History is complete with gangs & gunfights, vigilante justice, Native Americans, prostitution, saloons, miners and gamblers. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were real criminals. Wyatt Earp worked for a short time in Silverton! The stories just go on and on.

The rugged San Juan Mountains makes this area the most spectacular scenery in the world. On the mesa tops and canyons, Ancient Pueblo ruins and artifacts dating as far back as 1300 years, just adds to how amazing the history is here.

We live in a place that in a short distance we go from rugged mountains and Alpine meadows to deserts and deep canyons. Vast distances are everywhere we look. The night sky with its billions of stars and planets reminds us of how small we are.

This is what drives me to paint, I will never run out of subject matter in my life time.