“To be honest, I never truly enjoyed painting as I had hoped,” she says. “I was afraid of color. I never wanted to make mud.” So her journey took another turn when she delivered a sign she’d painted to a local artist named Gale Bennett. At the time, Bennett was both art and music critic for the Fort Myers newspaper,
“I believe my art is impressionist expressionist style. More paint, adding neon, trying to create something no one has seen. If I’m bored with it, the public will be too. I’m so lucky, I get to paint whenever I want and I work every day.” — Leoma Lonegrove
but was also an artist who had founded ArtStudy Giverny in France (home of Monet’s Garden), and was establishing ArtStudy Florida in, of all places, Matlacha. Bennett taught impressionism and Lovegrove traded work in his studio for admission to his classes. It was a life- changing encounter. “With impressionism, there are really just a few colors you’re working with — a couple of yellows, a couple of blues, a couple of reds and white. You can mix any of those together, and you’ll never get mud. It freed me. I’ve painted like a bandit ever since.”
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