After decades of distinguished military service worldwide in special civilian operations and emergency response, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Carlene Salazar has found tranquility in Onalaska while maintaining a small farm and painting nearly every day.
There are currently 30 geese, nine peacocks and peahens, and well over 100 chickens on the 16-acre property Salazar shares with her husband, Brian Connors.
“We seem to have a retirement home for old chickens,” Salazar said. “They’re always fun to watch.”
And, apparently, to paint.
Salazar is well known throughout the area art community and by collectors for her landscapes and colorful, realistic portraits of the many chickens, ducks, geese, peafowl, goats and other animals she has known and loved — those that live (or have lived) on the farm.
She has been painting consistently since her childhood love of horses. She earned a bachelor’s degree in art at the University of Texas at El Paso and a master’s degree from Washington State University.
As a child, she was exposed to many different cultures, traveling with her family to all 50 states and all but two of the provinces in Canada, as well as Monaco, Italy, Greece and throughout northern Europe.
Salazar enlisted in the U.S. Army as an active duty cook and was quickly assigned to the allied student battalion at Fort Bliss, Texas, where every day for three years she and her team prepared 500 mess hall breakfasts, lunches and dinners for several different contingents of students from other countries.
She later enrolled in officer candidates’ school and came up the ranks to eventually be a part of the organizing and scheduling of military relief ships (Navy, Marines, Air Force and Army) during the devastating 2006 earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia and surrounding countries that occurred shortly after Christmas.
Service spent overseas included Kosova, Bosnia, the Philippines and Hawaii, and in one 10-year stretch alone Salazar was deployed five times as a reservist. She retired after 34 years in the Army.
When not tending the garden or farm, Salazar paints in oils, acrylics, pastels or watercolors from her home studio, a former canning kitchen.
“It’s nice to be retired and to now have the time and resources to be able to paint,” Salazar said.
She also paints plein aire style at various outdoor sites as well as during her volunteer shifts as a member of Art Gallery 505 in Toledo, where she recently sold two of her paintings to visitors who watched her put brush to canvas.
One of the clients put in her order for a painting of irises when it was only partly done, and another ordered a painting of a rooster that also wasn’t finished.
“I like having people watch me paint and ask questions” Salazar said. “Painting is relaxing, and my advice to anyone interested in it is to practice regularly. If something doesn’t work out, you go back and try something else, until it does. And whatever you’re doing, you do it well. Never stop learning.”
Her words and commitment to exemplary service have served her well. Aside from notable recognition as an Army commander and accomplished artist, she has served for the past four years as a judge of acrylic art at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup.
Salazar has been a member of the Plein Aire Association of Washington for eight years, a member of ARTrails of Southwest Washington for 11 years, and the Peninsula Art League based in Gig Harbor for 21 years, plus the Northwest Pastel Society and the Northwest Watercolor Society.
Besides the Toledo gallery, her work can also be seen at various businesses in the area. Visitors are welcome at her home studio by appointment and during the ARTrails area studios tour held each September.
Learn more online at https://carlene-salazar.pixels.com/.
