This was a weekend of travel and on Sunday afternoon I took a trip to Dallas…Dallas Georgia to see an art exhibit featuring the work of Don Maier and Suzie Majikol-Maier. Plein air is my passion and when I first discovered this lifestyle I researched and attempted to find out as much as I could about it. Google was my friend and I quickly landed on the web site pleinairartists.ning.com. 
The site features about two thousand like minded professionals and amateurs who enjoy painting outside and want to display their work along with catch up with events and news.The site was created and is maintained by an artist named Don Maier who just happens to live about five miles from my home here in Marietta. I was soon corresponding with Don and his wife Suzie Majikol-Maier about local events and over the period of the last year we have become good friends, painting together on several occasions and exhibiting recently with the North Georgia Artist Association (another of Don’s creations) in Douglasville.
As you can tell Don is a bit of an artist entrepreneur. He owns several sites that cater to artist and help them get their work out on the web and in front of viewers. On top
of that he and his wife are accomplished artists. This last weekend I was delighted to see over 100 works by the team at the Civic Center in Dallas GA. It was certainly worth the 40 minute drive —at least it should have been a 40 minute drive. I lost my map and then found it about an hour in and arrived just a bit too late for the opening on Sunday afternoon. Don and Suzie were just leaving as I arrived but I apologized and headed in to the venue with hopes of there still being enough time to take a look.
To my delight I was rewarded with an amazing collection of watercolors and pastels that literally took me on a odyssey of the places, people, flora and fauna of this well traveled couple. Don is originally from New Jersey but Suzie took a bit longer trip to this area —originally born in Malaysia. The work is top shelf and I was delighted with plein air views of the desert Southwest, the California coast ,the Southeast, even Ireland . In Don’s hands watercolor is a 
marvelous crisp medium with bright color and fluid gestural expression. I was interested in his use of multicolored light purples and ocher washes that flow together and form reflective lights in his paintings. His work in the desert is a tour of magnificent views that must have exposed him to the extremes of sun and heat to capture. Don has spent a lot of time out West, living in northern California for many years and his trips back and forth across the deserts and mountains are well chronicled here. Suzie too has 
been influenced by this and her delightful organic styled pastels express a bit more of the mystic aura that is associated with the places and people of the desert and beyond.
If you are in the area, take the time to get out a see this show. All the work is framed and for sale, so take your wallet and find a fantastic piece that not only exemplifies plein air art but also exposes you to some of most wondrous views our nation has to offer. If you can’t get out to Dallas explore their Fine Art America site pages linked above and take your own odyssey online. 