Southwestern & Colorado Landscapes

Colorado Artist Pam Furumo was first attracted to the distinctive vistas of the American Southwest by a photo-layout in a 1950’s Arizona Highways magazine. Finding the multicolored earth tones and sparse native plants of the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert irresistible she began her career as a landscape artist.

From that pictorial came inspiration and the first expression of Pam’s artistic vision—a vibrant series of watercolors—close-up panoramic views of sage plants dotting the windswept earth and high-desert terrains that stretched off to distant snow-capped mountains resplendent in their red and purple robes.

And from that also, came the urge to explore the red-earth country of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico—the urge to set up her paints in out-of-the-way places—to capture, in watercolor and acrylic, those luminous moments that shift and slip through the arid, brilliantly colored landscapes.

After studying art and painting at the Rocky Mountain School of Art in her hometown of Denver and printmaking at Colorado State University, Pam settled in to the small rural community of Bellvue, just north of Fort Collins, Colorado. Purchasing the old Post Office she set about restoring the vintage era building, doubling its size and making room for both living quarters and a studio.

All year the studio fills with northern sunlight filtering through the bay windows. In winter it is warmed by the hissing and crackling of the wood-burning stove in the corner and the companionship of Klondike and Pippy, her mousers and muses in residence.

When not exploring the red-earth country of the Southwest, Pam’s Bellvue backyard provides plenty of inspiration. To the east, the Bellvue Dome, a massive layer of Precambrian crust lunging skyward above the lush hayfields and pasture land of the Poudre River Valley, provides subject for vibrant watercolors and pastels.

With soft pastel chalks, brilliant hues of watercolor and bold splashes of acrylic, Pam renders the seasonal changes of her surroundings with expressionistic strokes that fuel both her imagination and her search for “the magic place beyond the next hill…the place that returns to her in dreams…the search that never ends.”