Meet Leah Potts | Watercolor artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Leah Potts and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Leah, is there something that you feel is most responsible for your success?
Hard work and dedication to the process.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Leah Potts Art Wild Life Artist

After a debilitating skiing accident that left me paralyzed, I find adventure in my paintings and the creative process. In a world where my body lets me down, I can escape the madness, go into the wilderness and connect with nature. Art saves lives, and painting wildlife fills my soul, helping me move through a disability and creating positive solutions. The pure elegance of nature’s palette, textures, and wildlife has become a constant source of inspiration for my watercolor paintings.

Learning to paint with my non-dominant hand challenges me but also frees my brush strokes, giving me a blend of realism and impressionistic style, enabling me to capture the spirit of the animal. My art begins with a simple idea and grows from there. In my paintings, I hope you can see but, more importantly, feel the essence of the animal through their eyes. With each brush stroke, the animals comes alive, and I am set free. The spirit of the animal fills my heart and inspires me through the tuff times, pushing me through the struggle. While painting, I’m not alone. I have a purpose, I’m needed.

I’m new to the art world as I’ve only been painting for the last 5 years; grateful for the support of this community, I’m eager to see where my artistic journey takes me as I explore new mediums, different techniques and new subjects. I ponder, I hope and I pray, not afraid to put myself on display; me, my art, wild but free.

I actually thought I’d never paint again. Months after earning a fine arts degree from Central Missouri State University, a skiing accident paralyzed me from the neck down. Instantly, I became a quadriplegic. Doctors gave me little hope to ever walk, write or paint – again.

With perseverance, I chose, to embraced this transforming moment deciding to push on, to overcome and live this life to the fullest. We all hurt, we all fall down, but it’s how we accept what life gives us and how gracefully we put it back together that shows us whom we truly are. The accident will not define me.

Fast forward 23 years, something was missing — my art.

There had to be more to life than rehabilitation. I needed an outlet, a way to express myself, to get out of my head and to create.

Painting forces me to use my non-dominant left hand. Amazingly, I can see the same expressive line that I had witnessed with my right all those years before.

My Art has filled me with renewed hope, desire, passion and connection; which has helped me come full circle in my healing.

Painting silences my struggles and I am free from the binding constraints that have restricted my body. I continue to love life, staying connected and finding peace.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I guess it would depend on the time of year because aspen is always having events, art openings and community activities. In the summer I would bike to the maroon bells or up castle creek to Ashcroft. Maybe grab lunch at the White House. Kale chicken salad or prime rib sandwich a favorite fries and a margarita.

Winter I would uphill or ski on Tiehack. Or do a few cross country laps at the golf course before lunch at meat and cheese or Clark’s.

I’m not a late night person but if I had a friend in town we would have to go to belly up for a show or even the Wheeler opera house.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I got my start at The Art Base in Basalt Colorado. I received a scholarship to take a week of art and was asked to come back the next week. This was a difficult process as I had not taken an art class or held a brush in 20 years. I was in a skiing accident that paralyzed me 3 months after graduating college.

Two years after this class and many classes and practice after I had my first professional show at the art base. I sold over 35 paintings and that’s when my career as an artist started.

I also have to credit the Red brick in aspen Colorado where I had a show a few years later and now am a resident artist with a studio.

Setting up a small art business is a process and it’s about setting up a good foundation.

It’s difficult for me to type as I only have one hand so if you wa t more information about me and my work I would rather chat by phone.

Website: leahpottsart@gmail.com

Instagram: @leahpottsart

Facebook: Leah Potts

Image Credits
Austin Colbert