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Dog Days
Painting Flag with the quintessential local art of Connie Townsend
By Bryce Propheter
Published on 03/19/2009
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All images appear courtesy of Connie Townsend.
What do classic artist Vincent Van Gogh and “The Farside” comic strip creator Gary Larson have in common? Both have played a part in influencing one of the most distinctive painters to call Flagstaff home. Connie Townsend is not a new name for anyone who’s stuck it out in northern Arizona for any amount of time. Her courageous colors and bold brush strokes mix with lovable subjects to create infinitely memorable pieces of fine art.
“Connie’s paintings are about fun. They’re uplifting, bright and unconventional, much like Connie herself,” says Kelley Durham, executive director of Second Chance Center for Animals. Townsend has painted multiple pieces to benefit the shelter.
While she does paint other things occasionally, Townsend is most well known for painting canine critters cruising in beautiful, classic cars. While this concept could have the potential to be cutesy and even cliché, Townsend attacks each canvas with seemingly wild movements of her brush. Her color palette often includes many bright yellows, reds, blues and greens, giving each painting an in-your-face quality that dares you to look at it.
This distinctive style has evolved and continues to evolve with each painting. “If you’re addicted to painting, it’s hard to be away from it because there’s something about it that just feels so good,” Townsend says. “You don’t quite feel normal if you’re not painting.”
While each painting she creates is indisputably her own, the specific uniqueness of each piece varies according to several things, including her mood that day, the brush she uses and the paints she decides to employ.
Townsend also says that she feels as if she’s still learning how to paint—a thought that might seem absurd to anyone who’s seen her work. However, Townsend says that after extended time away from painting, or even after long weekends, she feels as if she’s forgotten how to paint. “That’s why on a Monday I’ll usually warm up with something where I don’t care. Then by about Wednesday I’m painting like a champ again.”
“Connie is a really gifted painter,” says Chris Morgan of Christopher Morgan Galleries in California. “The paintings are not just funny or charming. If you took away the expressive animals and removed the old cars and trucks, you would be left with nothing but a gorgeous landscape.”
Currently, Townsend’s work is on display at several galleries—the Christopher Morgan Galleries in Palm Desert, the Howard/Mandville Gallery in Seattle, the Naked Horse Gallery in Scottsdale, Echo Canyon Art in downtown Flagstaff, and at Rafters Gallery in Kanab, Utah.
Townsend says her paintings continue to sell because she believes people don’t want to lose their sense of humor, which is something she tries to instill in each piece. “If a painting doesn’t have humor in it, I find it kind of boring,” she says.
That’s the third element that makes her work one-of-a-kind: great color, amazing brushwork and a sense of humor. But it wasn’t a straight and easy path to success for Townsend. She moved 10 times as a kid and says she did most of her early art in high school.
“When I was in junior high and high school, I wanted to be a cartoonist. Gary Larson is just a riot,” explains Townsend.
She later attended a community college in California before life brought her to Flagstaff. Here she first worked at the Purina factory. She also opened up and operated her own screen-printing business, which she called Outrageous Tees. When she burned out on screen-printing, she decided to take some art classes at Coconino Community College. “Up until this point, I had painted like five oil paintings,” says Townsend.
But the switch paid off and people began to take notice almost immediately. She enjoyed painting still-life, landscapes and old Jeeps. She painted her dog Cody after he passed away. Then, all the elements began to merge. A friend requested a painting of her dogs in a Jeep, and it snowballed from there.
“I always took pictures of dogs in cars in parking lots waiting for their owners,” says Townsend. “I guess that’s kind of where it started.”
At first, the animals were only in the vehicles. Then they were racing down the highway driving the vehicles, and that’s when Townsend says she “really started having fun with it.”
That sense of excitement is evident not only in the bright colors that jump off the canvas, but with the continuing evolution of her subject matter. “I didn’t think that people would like them as much as I do,” Townsend explains, grinning. “But they do, if not more.”
As she continued to sell paintings, more and more people began taking notice of the talent evident in her art and requesting paintings of their own pets.
“Her paintings have the ability to connect with a wide variety of people. They have a certain sweetness that appeals to the heart,” says Eleanor Mooney, manager of Sun Sounds of Arizona.
Townsend will be participating in Sun Sounds’ annual Made in the Shade Beer Fest—one of the several organizations and events she lends her artistic talents to.
In April, the City of Flagstaff’s “Soar into Spring” kite-flying event will feature one of her pieces as the festival’s poster. Then in June, one of Townsend’s paintings will be in the Second Chance Center’s annual fundraiser and adopt-a-thon. “Because I paint dogs, it’s a natural marriage of skill and need,” she says. This year’s work features two dogs and a cat four-wheeling in a Jeep with the San Francisco Peaks in the background.
In fact, the Peaks tend to show up in much of Townsend’s work. Her studio has an amazing view, and she says she’s always enjoyed painting landscapes. However, familiar local buildings also pop up frequently in her work.
“I still don’t like doing buildings as much as landscapes, but buildings are really popular. People like seeing buildings they recognize,” says Townsend. Macy’s is one of the local structures she’s painted the most because she’s “a big coffee addict.”
Recently, the Howard/Mandville Gallery in Seattle even asked her to incorporate some Seattle landmarks like Pike Place and Mt. Rainier into her paintings. “Luckily, everyone asks for things that I like to paint,” says Townsend.
So while the background elements continue to change, her subject matter has remained the same for years. This often prompts people to ask her if she ever gets sick of painting dogs.
“Even if I paint the same dog over and over again, every time it comes out different, or I’ve painted it different or I felt different that day,” replies Townsend.
Perhaps that is what keeps her work so interesting; each piece is completely different from the last, and yet so distinct that only one person could have painted it: Townsend. To see a selection of her work, visit her Web site at www.connietownsend.net. To see it in person, visit Echo Canyon Art downtown at 14 N. San Francisco. For more info, call 255-0349.
Additional photos for this story:
“Room with a View,” by Connie Townsend. 30 inches by 40 inches (Patrice Horstman Collection).
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"Scoot to Beer Fest." 18 inches by 14 inches (Promo image for this year's Made in the Shade Beer Festival).
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“Sheep Shifters.” 30 inches by 40 inches (Rhonda Roberts Collection, Arizona Border Collie Rescue).
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"Van Dogh"
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“While You Were Shopping.” 30 inches by 24 inches.
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